European Athletics U20 Championships

European Athletics U20 Championships

This biennial championships was first held in 1970 after three editions of the unofficial European Junior Games which started in 1964 and this year's event travels to Israel for the first time between 7-10 August 2023.

And the location will be familiar to many competitors as the Givat Ram Stadium in Jerusalem staged the 2022 European Athletics U18 Championships. Undoubtedly many of the champions will be planning to return later this year to seek honours at U20 level.

At the 2021 European Athletics U20 Championships in Tallinn, Great Britain & NI topped the medal table for the second successive edition with six gold medals ahead of Germany and Ireland who both claimed four titles apiece.

Individual highlights at those championships included Lithuania's Mykolas Alekna winning the discus title only one year before graduating to senior honours at the European Athletics Championships and France's Sasha Zhoya winning the 110m hurdles, clocking a wind-assisted 12.98 in the semifinals before setting a championship record of 13.05 in the final.

Prospective stars at this year's European Athletics U20 Championships include the highly-rated Serbian duo of Angelina Topic and Adriana Vilagos who won medals at the European Athletics Championships in the high jump and javelin respectively in Munich last summer.

Topic also won gold at the European Athletics U18 Championships in Jerusalem before clinching high jump bronze in Munich at the age of 17 to become the event's youngest ever medallist while Vilagos followed up her world U20 title in Cali, Colombia with silver in the javelin behind her long-time age-group rival Elina Tzengko from Greece.

Also watch out for Italy's Mattia Furlani and Niels Laros from the Netherlands who secured impressive doubles in Jerusalem last year. Furlani swept the long jump and high jump titles while Laros eased to victories in the 1500m and 3000m before revising the European U18 bests in both events at the end of the season.