The charismatic young local hero returns to the Bislett Stadium as world champion in tomorrow's International Association of Athletics Federations Diamond League meeting - but with a super-fast new rival.

Qatar's Abderrahman Samba, a 2016 allegiance transfer from the north-west African state of Mauritania, went top of this season’s world listings with his victory in a Diamond League record 47.57 on new home territory in the season’s Diamond League opener in Doha.

He then defeated his fellow 22-year-old in a barnstorming race in Rome last week, setting a new Diamond League and Asian record of 47.48.

Warholm, who broke the world outdoor 300m hurdles record in February, looked as if he was trying to better that time in his season-opener with a hugely committed start in the Olympic Stadium.

The tactic had worked for him in Oslo the previous year, and at the IAAF World Championships in London.

But in Rome, as he ran out of energy in the final straight, the taller, rangier figure of Samba moved smoothly past him, although he had the consolation of running his first sub-48sec race, taking 0.40sec off his own Norwegian record in 47.82.

Times will be of no great consequence to Warholm on his home track - he and his fervent fans will be after a victory.

But will he try and achieve it in the same fashion - or does he have a Plan B?

“I have to see Samba as a reason for me to chase him,” Warholm said at the pre-event press conference today.

Clement is in the line-up, along with Turkey’s adopted Cuban Yasmani Copello, but neither is expected to encroach upon the event’s key rivalry.

Equally compelling viewing for one of the most knowledgeable and enthusiastic crowds in the sport will be the evening’s concluding Dream Mile, a Bislett speciality, where the pacing has reportedly been set at the eye-watering level of 3min 46sec.

The home focus will be on the Ingebrigtsen brothers, Filip - the reigning European 1,500m champion - and Henrik - the 2012 European 1,500m champion.

Kenya's world 1,500m champion Elijah Manangoi will start as favourite, whilr Britain’s Jake Wightman, winner of the 1,500m in Oslo last year and bronze medallist behind the Kenyan at this year’s Commonwealth Games, will also be seeking another podium finish.

There will be keen interest too on the progress of the younger - although not the youngest - Ingebrigtsen brother, 17-year-old Jakub, who will run in the earlier 1,500m which is not a Diamond League event on the night.

Jakub earned the unique privilege last year of having the Dream Mile converted into an under-20 race to enable him to shine - and he duly improved his world age-16 record to 3:56.29 - well inside the 3:58.07 he had recorded the previous month in Eugene to become the youngest four-minute miler in history.

On his return to Eugene last month, the prodigious Ingebrigtsen - who has a four-year-old brother - lowered his best to 3:52.28 as he finished third in the Bowerman Mile.

Will he go any faster against another senior international field that includes Britain’s Chris O’Hare and US athlete Robby Andrews?

As a former European indoor high jump champion, Oslo’s meeting director Steinar Hoen always goes out of his way to accommodate and encourage fields which gather in his old event, and he will once again welcome Qatar’s world champion Mutaz Essa Barshim.

“I hope to break the world record this year,” said Barshim, who is second on the all-time lists with 2.43m behind the world record holder Javier Sotomayor, whose mark of 2.45 was set in 1993.

The IAAF Athlete of the Year, who tops this year’s world lists with the 2.40 he achieved in his home opening Diamond League meeting in Doha, will take on a field that includes the Russian, Danil Lysenko, who beat him to the world indoor title in Birmingham earlier this year and will be competing as an Authorised Neutral Athlete.

Belarus’s Dzmitry Nabokau, who cleared a national record of 2.36 last month, could also improve his status.

While the long-running controversy over the IAAF’s planned changes to allowable testosterone levels in women’s events continues to play out, South Africa’s world and Olympic 800m champion Caster Semenya has been keeping her mind on the job in recent weeks.

She looks ready to maintain her unbeaten run against a field that contains Olympic silver medallist Francine Niyonsaba of Burundi, Ethiopian newcomer Habitam Alemu - who has run 1:57.78 this year - and Britain’s Laura Muir, who is seeking to better her personal best of 1:58.69 at the stadium where she won her first Diamond League race, over 1,500m, in 2015.

World champion Emma Coburn, who fell at the final water jump at the Rome Diamond League 3,000m steeplechase while contesting the lead and finished fourth, will seek a better placing - although the Rome winner, Kenya’s 2015 world champion Hyvin Kiyeng, will be tough for the American to beat.

In the 200m, the 20-year-old Noah Lyles of the US will defend his title - and unbeaten Diamond League record - against, among others, Turkey’s world champion Ramil Guliyev.

Meanwhile there will be attention on the women’s pole vault, where Greece’s world and Olympic champion Katerina Stefanidi has yet to hit form and US world indoor champion Sandi Morris, the only woman other than the retired Yelena Isinbayeva to have cleared 5.00m, will be eager to take further advantage.