Athletics World Championships 19.8.–27.8. Ylen channels. See the schedule and broadcast information of the games at this link.
On June 15, the 20-year-old made the most stunning bets of the Oslo Diamond League competition From Håvard Ingvaldsen. The lap time of 44.86 was a new Norwegian record and a personal best improvement of 1.08 seconds. For example, last year’s World Cup third place, Britain’s, was left behind Matthew Hudson-Smith.
Although the coach knows his athlete’s performance as much as the athlete himself, Ingvaldsen’s mother Mari Ann Bentdal couldn’t believe his eyes in Bislett’s coach stand.
– Håvard ran a little under 46 seconds in both 2021 and 2022, so I had thought that good goals for the 2023 season would be to improve the record to around 45.4 and the youth EC gold in Espoo, Bentdal tells Urheilu.
– Even Bislett’s result was a huge surprise.
The mother, who has coached her son throughout this approximately seven-year athletics career, stated that the big goals of the season had been achieved on July 14, when Ingvaldsen won the European under-23 championship in Espoo.
– However, after Bislett, Håvard said that he can still improve his record this season. He has always looked really good in training.
Budapest shook
On Sunday, the second day of the World Championships in Budapest, then it shook. Ingvaldsen ran an amazing time of 44.39 already in the preliminaries, in which he was the fastest athlete by a margin of 0.18 seconds. The quarter miler, who turns 21 next month, has a few things to factor into his appeal.
– Håvard had never competed this early in the day before. Because of the heat, he had to cool himself with a vest filled with cold packs, the mother tells about the preliminaries that started at 11:25 a.m., from which the elite advanced to Tuesday’s semifinals.
of the GDR Thomas Schönlebe ran the 1987 European Championship gold in Rome with a time of 44.33, which is still the European record 36 years later. In addition to the East German, only the British Hudson-Smith, Mark Richardson, Roger Black and Ivan Thomas.
– Runners from the USA and the Caribbean region have mastered the 400 meters. In this respect Karsten Warholm has been a really important role model for Håvard, says the mother.
In his breakthrough race in Kristiansand in September 2021, Ingvaldsen broke 46 seconds for the first time with a time of 45.94 – coincidentally, the same time as Warholm had smashed the fenced track lap at the ME Tokyo Olympic Games in August. Bislett’s time of 44.86 in mid-June transferred the 400m Norwegian record from Warholm to Ingvaldsen.
Mother was a 7-player
Mari Ann Bentdal was herself a 7-a-sider, who at her best in the 1980s represented Norway in age group matches and also competed in Finland. When the boy, who had played football for a long time, wanted to invest in athletics at the age of 14, the mother was not immediately sure what his optimal sport would be.
– Håvard first tried medium distances and then short fast distances. He ran his first 400m race at the age of 16, clocking 54 seconds.
Although a new main route had been found, the beginning was anything but easy.
– He was afraid of the pain that lactate produces during a 400-meter run. It led to the fact that he began to respect the journey too much and for a long time did not dare to put himself in the way that the journey requires. He could run back-to-back 50-second times, even though there had been a clear improvement in training between races.
The mental barrier was broken at the latest in the above-mentioned competition in Kristiansand.
– Håvard is a humble, hard-working and very ambitious athlete who endures a lot of training and recovers from hard training very quickly. All three of our children have a very diverse, sporty childhood behind them.
The family lives in Moelv between Hamar and Lillehammer, about 155 kilometers north of Oslo. The runner, who went to sports high school instead of a regular high school, still lives at home, where there have been no problems with roles. At home a mother is a mother, on the field a coach.
– Håvard is a smart and great boy. We never argue. As an athlete, she has by no means been burned out by the amount or intensity of training, which of course opens up very promising prospects for the future, says Mari Ann Bentdal.
Although the World Cup semi-final in the evening lights on Tuesday is a physical and mental test on a different level than the preliminary round, the mother is confident.
– Håvard can hardly even be nervous. Everything is happening to him for the first time, Mari Ann Bentdal laughs.
The men’s 400-meter semi-finals are scheduled for Tuesday at 10 p.m. The final will be run on Thursday at 10:35 p.m.