Ida-Louise Øverland

Happy birthday to Norway’s sprinter Ida-Louise Øverland, a Paralympian whose career already includes both the 100m and the 200m on the biggest stage her sport has.

Ida-Louise races in the T47 class, and across a career that has taken her from a World Para Athletics Championships in Dubai to the Tokyo Paralympic Games, she has doubled up over 100m and 200m at the very highest level there is. She was 16 at that first world championships. She ran her Tokyo 200m four days before her eighteenth birthday, which is a remarkable way to spend the week before you turn 18. The Norwegian federation has since clocked her at 12.78 over 100m in Ireland.

Off the track she is a business student, splitting her life between Oslo and Harstad, which are about as far apart as two Norwegian addresses can reasonably be. That is a lot of country to keep crossing.

The Norwegian birthday custom is that everybody stands in a ring around you and sings, and then you pick somebody out of the ring to dance with. We hope the ring is a big one today.

Gratulerer med dagen, Ida-Louise! Hurra for deg — og heia, hele veien! 🎂🎁🎉🫶🫶🇳🇴