Dibaba and Barshim Target Records in Oslo

Published by IAAF on June 10, 2015

For the world’s leading athletes converging on Oslo for the sixth IAAF Diamond League meeting of the season, a mass of posters at their hotel next to the central station serves as a vivid reminder that this year marks the 50th anniversary staging of the ExxonMobil Bislett Games.

Champions past and present will be in the stadium on Thursday night (11), and inevitably much of the focus will be on Oslo’s unique annual presentation, the Dream Mile, and Genzebe Dibaba’s attempt to better the world 5000m record set in the same stadium by her elder sister Tirunesh in 2008.

But if the Bislett Games is to see its 28th senior world record on this special night – and the first since that mark of 14:11.15 set by Dibaba senior – it could well come in the field rather than the track, given the stellar collection of men’s high jumpers assembled.

Russia’s Olympic champion Ivan Ukhov is here, along with the silver and bronze medallists from London 2012, respectively Erik Kynard of the United States and Canada’s Derek Drouin, the Commonwealth champion. Ukraine’s world champion Bogdan Bondarenko is here.  So is China’s Zhang Guowei, who jumped 2.38m at the IAAF Diamond League meeting in Shanghai.