Josefine Tomine Eriksen Aks

Happy birthday to Norway’s Josefine Tomine Eriksen Aks, an Olympian who has run the opening leg on six consecutive Norwegian national records.

Read that again, because it is the most remarkable line on any CV in this batch. Since 2024 the Norwegian women’s 4x400m record has been broken six times. Josefine has led off every single one of them. The sequence runs 3:26.89, then 3:26.88 at the World Relays in Nassau, then 3:26.05 at the European Championships in Rome, then 3:25.35 at the World Relays in Guangzhou, then 3:23.71 in the final at the World Championships in Tokyo, and then, on 3 May this year in Gaborone, **3:20.96 to win the World Athletics Relays**. Six seconds off a national record in two years, and she was the first runner on the track for all of it.

Her split in Gaborone was 51.19 in the heat and 51.26 in the final, the second-fastest Norwegian leg both times. Three weeks earlier she had run 51.43 over 400m at the Kip Keino Classic in Nairobi, a personal best, and the second-fastest 400m any Norwegian woman has ever run. In February she won the Norwegian indoor 400m title, the first senior national championship of her career, and took silver over 400m at the Nordic Indoor Championships in Karlstad in 52.60.

The rest of it is already substantial. European U18 bronze over 400m at fifteen. The Olympic Games in Paris. The European Championships in Rome. Sixth in the 4x400m final at the World Championships in Tokyo. Two American universities, UT Rio Grande Valley and then Utah, and a return home to Sem IF.

Leadoff is the least glamorous leg in the relay and the one that decides the race. Somebody has to go first with nobody to chase.

Gratulerer så mye med dagen, Josefine! Hurra for deg som fyller ditt år, og hurra for den førsteetappen. Heia Josefine! 🎂🎁🎉🫶🫶🇳🇴