Two days before the competition, the Norwegian World Championship participants will attend a press conference in Tokyo. But Narve Gilje Nordås has no plans to let himself be interviewed before Sunday's attempt at 1,500 meters.
You have asked if Narve will have a press conference. He will not have one. He does not want to, even though I strongly recommended him to do so, says press chief Øystein Jarlsbo according to Nettavisen.
Nordås: Wants to avoid trouble
The choice not to make himself available to the media before the World Championship competition goes against the Norwegian athletics association's rules, says Jarlsbo.
It is actually stated in the contracts that one is obliged to attend in connection with the championship.
When NRK catches Nordås for a brief comment at a train station in the Japanese capital, he says the following about the choice to skip the press conference:
I do not want to comment on that so much. I want to avoid creating too much trouble, turmoil and worry, says Nordås.
On the question of how the dialogue has been between the association and Nordås, Øystein Jarlsbo tells Nettavisen:
It is quite poor, since he actually does not want to communicate with me.
He does not want to communicate with me, even though he has just done so, to say that he does not want to communicate with me.
Ingebrigtsen is going home
Nordås, who will also run 5,000 meters, has had his own camp before the World Championship in Tokyo, together with his coach Gjert Ingebrigtsen. The same Ingebrigtsen was acquitted in June of allegations of assault against his son Jakob Ingebrigtsen, who will also run 1,500 meters on Sunday, but was sentenced to a shorter conditional prison sentence for causing bodily harm to his daughter.
Gjert Ingebrigtsen has tried to get a World Championship accreditation, but got a no from Norway's, Portugal's and Canada's associations – he trains World Championship athletes from all nations – and chooses to go home instead.
”It hurts to see that Narve once again has to enter a championship without the support that other Norwegian athletes take for granted”, writes Ingebrigtsen in a column on VG.
At the last World Championship, in Budapest 2023, Narve Gilje Nordås took bronze on 1,500 meters. Jakob Ingebrigtsen took silver, and the Brit Josh Kerr took gold.
