Narve Gilje Nordås bounced back from missing out on a medal at the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow two months ago with a confidence-boosting 1500m win at the Iberoamericano Huelva meeting in Spain on Tuesday night (30).
His time of 3:34.11 at the World Athletics Continental Tour Bronze meeting was an early season European outdoor-lead and came after a late switch from a planned outing over 5000m, although later that night he did return to the track and pace his fellow Norwegian and training partner Per Svela for 10 laps, helping the latter clocked a personal best and European Athletics Championships qualifying mark of 13:19.87.
"It was a lot of fun and I am very happy with that season opener. It’s very similar to how I opened many other seasons that turned out very well. I am very satisfied with that feeling, and feeling a flow and that things are a bit right," reflected Nordås.
His comments indicated that all was now well barely a month before the Roma 2024 European Athletics Championships from 7-12 June, with his next race scheduled to be another 1500m outing at the Doha Diamond League meeting on 10 May.
The 2023 World Athletics Championships 1500m bronze medallist certainly has fond memories of the Andalucian venue after setting a personal best over 1500m of 3:36.23 on the same track in 2022.
The result two years ago signalled to some – not least his coach Gjert Ingebrigtsen – that he could emerge as a potential medal contender over the distance and helped confirm his own subsequent decision to focus more on the shorter distance.
After previously being best known as a 5000m/10,000m runner, a career up to that point which had as its highlights fifth place in the 2017 European Athletics U20 Championships 10,000m and sixth two years later over the same distance at the European Athletics U23 Championships.
The in the wake of a disappointing 17th place in the Munich 2022 European Athletics Championships 5000m, Nordås decided to go in another direction.
No time to quit
“I seriously considered quitting running after that race but then reflected and decided to give it another year,” he recalled.
His Huelva result – his fastest ever yearly opener outdoors over 1500m – will certainly have restored his morale following his Glasgow performance, a result he was later to describe in dismal terms.
“When you finish fifth in the World Indoor Championships, then it is a failure. That's how it is,” he reflected – despite running an indoor personal best of 3:37.03 – addressing the massed ranks of the media waiting for him after the finish line, many of them his compatriots who had also expected him to get a medal.
However, he was quickly able to put the result into context and see the bigger picture.
“The indoor season isn’t as important as the outdoor with the Europeans and Olympic coming up, but you have to race indoors to prepare for outdoors, and I’m using the indoor season as training for the outdoors, but I was still hoping for a medal,” he added.
His win is the south of Spain was his fastest ever summer opener, almost two seconds quicker than in 2023 when he went on to take a World Athletics Championships bronze medal in Budapest and run under 3:30 on two occasions, setting a personal best of 3:29.47 in Oslo.
All this means that Nordås can now focus fully on his outdoor campaign in which he has set his sights on medals at both the Roma 2024 and Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
“For me, the Europeans are the second most important meeting of the year after the Olympics. I’m thinking about doing both the 1500m and 5000m at both championships [Roma 2024 European Athletics Championships and Paris 2024 Olympic Games] and I want to get a medal at both.
“The 1500m is my priority but in Rome the 5000m comes first, while in Paris it’s the other way around. But Rome is a straight [5000m] final, so that helps.”
“Rome is very important in my preparations for the Olympics, mentally as much as anything,” commented the self-confessed computer nerd. “What do I do to relax? I love to do programming, build databases and work with artificial intelligence, stuff like that.”
Back to Spain
Nordås trained at altitude in Spain’s Sierra Nevada during January and returned there between end of the indoor season and his recent first race of the summer.
He is still coached by Gjert Ingebrigtsen, although the latter is no longer involved in the careers of his famous three sons, including Jakob who won memorable 1500/5000m doubles at the 2018 and 2022 European Athletics Championships, after an acrimonious and highly publicised split.
Nordås is set on a collision course with the two-time European Athlete of the Year in Rome, whether over the 1500m, 5000m or, most probably, both distances.
Nordås has yet to come home ahead of Jakob Ingebrigtsen in any of their 17 encounters, which date back to 2017, over various distances and terrains but having only finished 0.03 behind his compatriot and former training partner at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Nordås believes that the gap between the pair, especially over the shorter distance is closing all the time.
However, the likes of the last two 1500m world champions Jake Wightman and Josh Kerr, both from Great Britain, as well as the likes of Spain’s Mario Garcia and the prodigious Dutch teenager Niels Laros should ensure that interest, in the 1500m at least, extends beyond Norway.
Phil Minshull for European Athletics