– I feel a discomfort – NRK Sport – Sports news, results and broadcasting schedule

– It’s also good for social anxiety. Avoid meeting people.

– Do you have social anxiety?

– Yes, yes, it’s not nonsense either.

Nordås serves NRK a cup of coffee from the espresso machine that dominates the kitchen counter in the flat by Klepp station in Jæren. The living room is lightly furnished with a sofa, a guitar and a small bookcase that is adorned with the WC bronze medal from Budapest. He doesn’t need TV.

Today’s first of two sessions with girlfriend Oda Andersen Lundeby is over. A few quiet kilometers in lovely surroundings along the spring stone on Jæren.

As usual, he answers openly, unfiltered and with a little twinkle in his eye.

Today he talks about social anxiety, the failure stamp he was awarded after 5th place in the WC indoor championships and the sky-high ambitions before the EC and Olympics this summer.

I shudder at the thought

But first he talks about the back of the WC bronze medal. He likes himself best when he can do his job, which is to run fast for 1500 metres. Now the 25-year-old put into words what is bothering him.

– If I go to the store, you might meet familiar people … then there will be small talk, and then I feel an uneasiness connected to it. I must admit that. It is not always the same. Interview is not a problem. It is targeted, it is a strategy and plan.

– But meeting famous people … ugh, says Nordås and shudder.

He experiences discomfort, but says it does not hinder him in everyday life. If someone wonders about the behaviour, he has no problem telling why:

– If I’m a bit shy to talk to, they at least understand why.

– What is stopping you?

– It’s probably in your head, then. Most likely.

Uncertain about diagnosis

Asle Hoffart is professor emeritus, psychologist and senior researcher at Modum Bad, who has written a self-help book about social anxiety. He believes that it is completely natural to have anxiety in special situations.

To be diagnosed with social phobia, it must typically be inhibiting in daily life.

– Another anxiety is that one will behave clumsily or not have answers to questions. That is what his anxiety is about, that he is afraid of the small talk and that he has nothing to say. It is similar to one of the symptoms that is common with social anxiety, says Hoffart to NRK.

He does not want to carry out remote diagnosis, but hardly thinks that Nordås would receive a diagnosis. It depends on how inhibiting and troublesome it is in everyday life.

Jærbuen believes – in his professional path – that he avoids certain social settings can have positive side effects.

– You are less with people, less risk of infection, less chance of you staying up late one night, less chance of you taking your focus away from training…

At the same time, it comes with a price.

– Say you’re out for the championship and then you’ll go down and eat in the dining room. It’s almost a … You feel a little discomfort connected to it, if you meet some famous people. It can present a few challenges from a purely practical point of view, but for the most part it works out. It’s not that crazy either. I get through the week after all.

Label as a failure

When he took WC bronze in Budapest, he let go of the problem. He offered his own hotel with coach Gjert Ingebrigtsen and training partner Per Svela with a pretentious setting in the dining room, but that is not an option during the Olympics in Paris. Then he has to fend for himself.

The list before the summer is set so high that he should preferably avoid moments of stress.

– When you finish fifth in the WC, then it is a failure. That’s how it is. That’s how the world has become. Then it’s just a matter of getting it right. For my part, it is also a failure. So it’s fine that the Norwegian media is in agreement with that, says Nordås, who got failure headlines in the biggest newspaper in the country after the Glasgow Indoor WC.

– Then I know that within what I have to do, any other medal is a failure. And that’s okay. When you won a medal last year, and I ran in 3.29, that’s how it has to be.

The next championships are approaching. There are less than three months to the EC. The Olympics are just over four months away. Bronze-Narve is going for gold this summer.

– I’m not going to say that I’m a gold favorite, that’s not what I’m claiming, but I’m a gold candidate, in every way, like an awful lot of others. I hope I still have the position for that, because that is the goal when you stand on the starting line.

PS! Narve Gilje Nordås opens the season with 5000 meters in Huelva, Spain, on 30 April. He then ran 1,500 meters during the NRK-broadcast Diamond League event from Doha on 10 May.