The Oslo Bislett Games to be kicked off on Friday

July 1, 2009

Photo © Bislett Alliansen / Eirik Førde.

Oslo June 30 – With temperatures of 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit), and with an even hotter forecast by the end of the week, it is clear that the ExxonMobil Bislett Games is going to provide the weather conditions to match the sizzling entertainment at Bislett Stadium.

The annual athletics event has been arranged since 1965, and it has become a huge hit and attracts thousands of visitors from around the world. Every year the top athletes within the circuit show up in the hunt to set new world records. In the last couple of years there has been 60 new world records set at Bislett Stadium during the Golden League.

The event is part of the annual IAAF Golden League, which consists of athletic meetings in Oslo, Rome, Monaco, Zürich, Brussels and Berlin. In selected events, athletes who win their event at all six meetings take home a share of a USD 1 million jackpot.

Outstanding long distance running has always been a tradition with the World records in the women’s 5000m by Meseret Defar and Tirunesh Dibaba in the last two years the most recent results to resonate around Bislett’s famous sporting cauldron.

Now in 2009 after an absence of two years the men’s 5000m is again included in the programme at the ExxonMobil Bislett Games. This is one of the ten events eligible for the jackpot. The 5000m is in many respects returning to one of its spiritual homes, to a stadium which has witnessed so many races of legend including World records at the distance by Dave Moorcroft and Said Aouita.

The Bislett venue has seen also some magnificent javelin performances over the years with a total of three World records for the men, two to Terje Pedersen of Norway and one to the Czech legend Jan Zelezny, and one World mark to the women by another Norwegian, Trine Hattestad.