When Samuel Pihlström on Wednesday afternoon Swedish time stands on the starting line for the World Cup final of 1,500 meters, he does it as a lonely Nordbo. This was supposed to be a big Norwegian day in Tokyo ended with all three Norwegians missing the final.
The new star shot, 19-year-old Håkon Moe Berg, who took double gold at the U20 European Championships in Tampere this summer, disappeared in the trials.
The same fate hit Jakob Ingebrigtsen, Olympic champion at the distance in the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, who in the comeback after injury was not like and finished eight in his experimental heat.
Narve Lilje Nordås, who took bronze in the distance in the Budapest World Cup two years ago, was one hundredth behind Samuel Pihlström in the semi-finals and was knocked out too.
Is it a change of throne we see in Nordic running?
– Maybe you might call it. We have Andreas (Almgren’s) medal as well, says Pihlström, and at the same time notes that the Norwegians had some “post out”.
In recent years, Norway has had great success on the running side. The charging for the World Cup has been characterized by major headlines around the brawl around the Ingebrigtsen family.
This spring reported Jakob Ingebrigtsen his father for abuse. After a seven -week trial, Gjurt Ingebrigtsen was released in June from the allegations of abuse, but was sentenced to 15 days conditional prison and fine of cutting his daughter with a towel.
Gjert Ingebrigtsen has in recent years trained Narve Gilje Nordås, but also the Portuguese José Carlos Pinto and Canadian Kieran Lumb, who all participate in the World Cup. But Ingebrigtsen was not granted accreditation to the championship and chose to go home from Tokyo.
After the trial of 1,500 meters, Pinto paid tribute to his coach and criticized the decision not to give him accreditation.
“I feel discriminated against who must not have my coach in place,” said the Portuguese.
The statement was given Jakob Ingebrigtsen’s wife Elisabeth Asserson to react. In a post on social media, she writes that the verdict against Gjert Ingebrigtsen is trivialized in the comments fields and that Pinto’s statement is “gasoline on the fire”.
“I can no longer see that Jacob, his brothers and his sister’s experiences are ridiculed and trivialized in this way,” Asserson writes.
The conflict and soap opera Around the Ingebrigtsen family continues to steal attention from sports. This is according to Leif Olav Alsnes, long -time coach for Karsten Warholm, world record holder and multiple world champion on 400 meters hedge.
– What happens in Norwegian athletics is fantastic and I hope we can get even greater focus on the performance, because right now there is much else on the sports pages, he says when DN meets him in Tokyo.
So when it was thought that Norway would again challenge the medals on the “Athletics Blue Band”, it is instead a 24-year-old orienteer from Gothenburg who constitutes the Nordic hope.
Samuel Pihlström took gold in sprint at the European Youth Championship in orientation in 2018, but two years later began to concentrate on running.
Now he’s ready To fight for championship medal even in its second sport. He made a tactically perfect semi -finals.
– You can’t take anything for granted, but the final was the goal, says Pihlström, as the final as an open story.
– Both the world set (Yared Nuguse, USA) and the World Town (Jakob Ingebrigtsen) are eliminated in the trials. It was very even in the semi -finals and I think it can be here too, he says.
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