Karoline Bjerkeli Grovdal, 26, won Norway’s first medal of these championships despite running 24 laps of the 25-lap race with a broken shoe.
The Norwegian was always in the running for a medal but a broken shoe is a bit of a handicap when you are running at a pace you have never run before.
She noticed on the start line that the shoe had started to tear but did not think too much of it: “They are my favourite shoes and I wanted to wear them,” she explained in the mixed zone later, holding up the right spike which had a long tear down the side.
“After one lap I could see it was torn and I had to keep looking down. Fortunately, it held up until the finish, but it did not bother me in any way,” said the bronze medallist from Oslo’s Tjalve club.
With bronze around her neck she follows in the footsteps of such famous Norwegian names as Grete Waitz and Ingrid Kristiansen who won a clutch of medals at these championships in the 70s and 80s.
It was Kristiansen who sent her a message of congratulations after the race had concluded: “It shows that hard work over time gives good results,” said the 1986 10,000m gold medallist. “Karoline is on her way to being a top runner.”
Grovdal had expected a tactical race but the winner, Yasemin Can of Türkiye, made it fast all the way: “I was taken by surprise it was so fast,” said Grovdal. “But I am confident of my ability. I know what I am capable of and so I went with the pace.”
It was the Norwegian’s first senior medal on the track and improved her personal best by over 14 seconds set in Stanford California in May. Grovdal has three European junior golds from 2007 and 2009.
It is ten years since Norway last won a medal at this distance when Bergen’s Susan Wigene captured silver in Gothenburg.
“Fantastic to take a medal after such a hard race when everyone went fast,” said Grovdal. “It tasted more like gold.”