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Agencies
Oslo
Qatar's Mutaz Essa Barshim finally released meeting organiser Steinar Hoen from his personal pain at the Oslo Bislett Games, the season's fifth IAAF Diamond League meeting, by breaking the Bislett Stadium's 28-year-old high jump record of 2.37m on Thursday.
After assembling another stellar high jump field, Hoen who won this event in 1994 with an effort of 2.35m admitted:"I feel personally that I want to kill this record."
Lo, Qatar's baby-faced assassin did the deed, having teetered on the brink of an earlier-than-hoped-for exit with two failures at 2.35m before clearing at last and then setting the meeting record of 2.38m in his second attempt, thus bettering the mark set in 1989 by the only man who has jumped higher than him, Cuba's world record-holder at 2.45m, Javier Sotomayor.
"That was the target," said Barshim."We came for 2.38m, so mission completed. At the beginning I was feeling a little bit sleepy, but after 2.33m I woke up and came into the right rhythm.
"Also my coach was happy and I especially, because I took this record off Sotomayor after 28 years. Our plan works, we go step by step. I'm blessed for every opportunity I can get."
Barshim's mark is also the best recorded so far this year, and a clear marker of the 2014 world indoor champion's intention of earning a first outdoor global title at this summer's IAAF World Championships London 2017.
The Qatari had the event won with a first-time clearance of 2.32m, with Ukraine's 2013 world champion Bogdan Bondarenko, in his first competition of the season, relatively content to settle for second with 2.29m, four centimetres clear of Canada's Olympic champion Derek Drouin.
In the other events, the concluding men's 1500m involving a field that would normally have raced under the traditional banner of a Dream Mile had that not been transferred to the U20 race here involving home athlete Jakob Ingebrigtsen produced a breakthrough victory for Britain's Jake Wightman, who took more than a second off his personal best of 3:35.49 as he finished strongly in 3:34.17.
In his wake, the 22-year-old left some of the world's most accomplished metric milers, with Kenya's Elijah Manangoi, who has a personal best of 3:29.67, finishing second in 3:34.30 and the hugely experienced Polish athlete Marcin Lewandowski third in a personal best of 3:34.60.
It was a night to remember for the man whose parents Susan Tooby and Geoff Wightman, who is also his coach, were both successful international marathon runners.
And all told it was marvellous timing by the young British athlete with two former British legends of the mile here, IAAF President Sebastian Coe and the BBC's Steve Cram, looking on.
After his younger brother's resounding win in the night's Dream Mile, it would have been a home stretch for next up brother Filip, the European champion, to make it a family double. In the end, the 24-year-old had to settle for fourth place in a season's best of 3:36.74.
There was some embarrassment for the organisers as world 200m champion Dafne Schippers, who was awarded a special Oslo medal for her performances after coming home first in the 200m in 22.31 and serenaded with Happy Birthday on the day she turned 25, then learned she had been disqualified for an earlier false start.
But the Dutch athlete, who had run under protest, belatedly regained her victory on appeal after claiming she had been put off by someone close by standing up and banging their seat back."It was noisy at the start, so much noise, very hard to concentrate," she said.
The Ivory Coast athlete who had chased her home, Murielle Ahoure, was second in 22.74, with Jamaica's Simone Facey third in 22.77.
Andre de Grasse just held off the challenge of his sometime training partner Chijindu Ujah to retain his 100m title in Oslo, clocking 10.01.
Canada's 22-year-old Olympic 100m bronze medallist had hoped to set his 10th sub-10-second time here, but despite a slight following wind of 0.2m/s, the cooling and blowy conditions did not help him in that ambition.
What did help him to generate speed, however, was the driving challenge, immediately to his right, of Ujah.
