"Actually there is such an international track now - Helsinki! When it was renovated in 2010 they put in a "broken back" design with 24 - 48 - 24 metre radiuses in the bends. The straightaways became 98.52 m.
This created an outcry from the athletes in the first major event held there, the prestigeous traditional match between Finland and Sweden that autumn. The strongest criticism came from Finnish 200 m runner Jonathan Ã…strand, but even the female 400m runners at their 54ish pace had major problems with the changes in curvature.
However, it was argued by the people in charge that the design was not breaking any IAAF rules and that it would be too expensive to redesign the track to a standard configuration (also they would need to take some 4-5 metres from the stands in either end).
Then this year (2012) the arena hosted the European Championships and suddenly athletes (other than those from Finland and Sweden who already knew) from all over Europe were shocked to find themselves on a non-standard track design they never before had experienced. Probably not even as kids.
The consequences became immediately apparent with a flood of out-of-lane dq's in the first round of the men's 400m on the first day. In the first heat three out of seven were dq'd! And the simple reason was a track where you were forced to re-adjust your running not only going in and out of the bends but also twice within each bend.
The athletes (those not already dq'd ...) managed to accomodate for this as the competition went on - but of course it came at an expense performancewise. In the 200m it was obvious that no one dared to run all out on the bend. Instead they ran "carefully" to avoid any mis-stepping (or injury) and then tried to pour it on in the extralong finishing straight instead. But some athletes - like Ndure - immediately cancelled their 200m entries."
This was posted on another message board.
Not only does it prove that a non equal quadrant (IAAF standard) track isn't illegal and is indeed used for 'international competition', it also underlines the adverse effects it had on competitors, including elite women 400m runners, who generally are running at a speed slower than what the men's 800m at 1:42 pace is run at.
All evidence suggests that even if the Oslo track in the 70's and 80's did have shorter, tighter curves and longer straights, it would have been a disadvantage to optimal performance in a 2 lap race in lane 1 (the tightest curve, obviously), where the athlete was running at 25 sec 200m pace.