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2024 Review | An outdoor track and field season of gold and glory

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With an Olympic Games on European soil and the European Athletics Championships both taking place in a single summer, the 2024 outdoor track and field season was always likely to be a very special one.

And so, it proved.

Europe’s leading lights shone brilliantly in a memorable season for the sport. 

Jakob Ingebrigtsen (men’s 5000m), Armanda Duplantis (men’s pole vault), Miltiadis Tentoglou (men’s long jump), Jordan Alejandro Díaz Fortún (men’s triple jump), Keely Hodgkinson (women’s 800m), Yaroslava Mahuchikh (women’s high jump) and Nafissatou Thiam (women’s heptathlon) all became double champions in the same event from Rome and Paris. 

A record-breaking golden year 

Duplantis and Mahuchikh also had the honour of setting world records in their respective events, completing perfect summers, while Ingebrigtsen also landed a 3000m world record of 7:17.55 later in the summer. 

Meanwhile, the glorious era of Netherlands relay running continued apace. Lisanne de Witte, Lieke Klaver, Cathelijn Peeters and short track world record-breaker Femke Bol were the victorious Dutch 4x400m women’s team that won gold at the Roma 2024 European Athletics Championships. 

At the Olympic Games, Klaver and Peeters ran in the heats of the mixed 4x400m with Bol stepping in for Peeters in the final, running an incredible last leg to win gold. It meant that Bol, Klaver and Peeters ended the year with Olympic and European gold medals in their collection as well.

Throwers give first glimpse of medals to come

The first glimpse of the outdoor season to come arrived at the European Throwing Cup in Leiria, Portugal on 9-10 March.

The men’s hammer was a high quality event won by Ukraine’s Mykhaylo Kokhan with 78.13m ahead of Hungary’s Bence Halász with 76.22m. However, the tables were turned a few months later when Halász won Olympic and European silver in the summer, with Kokhan taking bronze at both events.

Eventual Roma 2024 gold medallists Jessica Schilder and Sara Fantini also opened their seasons in Leiria, placing first and third in the women’s shot put and women’s hammer respectively.

'Magnifico' Italians at Roma 2024

The Roma 2024 European Athletics Championships delivered the first major test of the summer and Italian athletes seized the moment in front of an adoring home crowd.

The Azzurri won a record-breaking 24 medals, the most ever by a host nation, including 11 gold medals.

Marcell Jacobs (men’s 100m), Yemaneberhan Crippa (men’s half marathon), Crippa, Pietro Riva and Pasquale Selvarolo (men’s half marathon team), Lorenzo Simonelli (men’s 110m hurdles), Matteo Melluzzo, Jacobs, Lorenzo Patta, Filippo Tortu, Roberto Rigali, Simonelli (men’s 4x100m), Gianmarco Tamberi (men’s high jump), Leonardo Fabbri (men’s shot put), Nadia Battocletti (women’s 5000m and 10,000m), Antonella Palmisano (women’s 20km race walk) and Fantini (women’s hammer) all struck gold for Italy.

It was also a remarkable competition for women’s discus legend Sandra Elkasevic, the Croatian won her seventh successive gold medal at the European Athletics Championships, an unprecedented achievement.

The men’s triple jump also caused a sensation, Spain’s Diaz Fortun landing the third longest triple jump in history with 18.18m, ahead of Portugal’s Pedro Pichardo with 18.04m; a contest for the ages as it was only the second time in history that two men had exceeded 18 metres in the same competition.

Roma 2024 also introduced the Gold Crown competition with ten athletes being rewarded with 50,000EUR prize for delivering the best overall performances in their event category. 

The recipients with winning performances were Karsten Warholm (men’s 400m hurdles), Bol (400m hurdles), Ingebrigtsen (men’s 1500m), Battocletti (women’s 5000m), Fabbri (men’s shot put), Elkasevic (women’s discus), Duplantis (men’s pole vault), Malaika Mihambo (women’s long jump), Johannes Erm (men’s decathlon), Nafissatou Thiam (women’s heptathlon).

Mondo delivers magical moment

Attention then switched the Olympic Games in Paris with European athletes in the global spotlight. Duplantis delivered as only he can, clearing a world record 6.25m when gold was already secured in the men’s pole vault to leave the Stade de France and millions of other viewers around the world in raptures.

There was also huge attention focussed on the men’s 1500m and the simmering rivalry between defending champion Ingebrigtsen and world champion Josh Kerr. In a true run race, the Europeans outdid one another and allowed the less fancied Cole Hocker of the USA to follow in their slipstream and snatch gold. 

Kerr took silver and the Norwegian finished fourth but Ingebrigtsen returned for 5000m gold, proving incredible resilience.

Tentoglou, Diaz Fortun, Hodgkinson, Mahuchikh and Thiam all etched their name into athletics history with gold in Paris. It was Thiam’s third successive Olympic heptathlon title while Tentoglou made it two Olympic titles in a row.

Surprising but fully deserved gold medals went to Markus Rooth (men’s decathlon) and Yemisi Ogunleye (women’s shot put), who both took their first ever senior titles on the biggest stage of all.

Relay glory on the track came via the Netherlands mixed 4x400m team and on the roads where Spain's Álvaro Martín and María Pérez won the marathon race walk relay

The Netherlands' Sifan Hassan delivered another incredible multi-medal championships, landing bronze in the women’s 5000m and 10,000m before going on to win the marathon.

The host nation were delivered one of their biggest moments of Paris 2024, when Cyréna Samba-Mayela took silver in the women’s 100m hurdles to go alongside the gold she took at Roma 2024. 

Long standing records rewritten

Away from the major championships were some outstanding world records by European athletes.

Duplantis - an almost universal choice as the male European Athlete of the Year later in 2024 - bookended the Olympic Games with a season-opening world record of 6.24m at the Xiamen Diamond League and then a post-Paris 2024 record of 6.26m at the Silesia Diamond League. 

Three of the longest standing records in the books were revised by Europeans. Mykolas Alekna wiped away the men’s discus world record that had stood since 1986 with 74.35m in Oklahoma in April. 

Mahuchikh cleared 2.10m at the Paris Diamond League in July, breaking a record that had stood since 1987, a feat that helped cement her election as the female European Athlete of the Year ,and Ingebrigtsen ran 7:17:55 at the Silesia Diamond League in August, obliterating a world record that had stood since 1996.

Caudery, Zhoya, Iapichino take leaps forward

At the culmination of the season, there were several rising European stars who could look back on 2024 as a summer of great progress.

This included Roma 2024 bronze medallist Molly Caudery, who finished the year as the world leader in the women’s pole vault. The Briton cleared 4.92m in Toulouse on 22 June. 

French 110m hurdler and 2021 European Athletics Rising Star Sasha Zhoya took his first ever Diamond League victories, winning in Paris, Rome and in the finals in Brussels. 

Italian long jumper Larissa Iapichino won silver at Roma 2024 and won the Diamond League Final in Brussels on 14 September.

The Belgian capital also saw her fellow Italian and Roma 2024 winner Leonardo Fabbri triumph after he produced the second best shot put ever by a European and improved his Italian record to 22.98m.

Meanwhile, her more experienced rival Malaika Mihambo of Germany could also savour another fruitful year, gleaning Olympic silver and European gold, the latter winning leap of 7.22m at Roma 2024 was also the world lead.

Next generation emerges

2024 was also a year in which the next generation of talent began to blossom with the staging of the European Athletics U18 Championships in Banska Bystrica, Slovakia on 18-21 July and the World Athletics U20 Championships in Lima, Peru on 27-31 August.

At Banska-Bystrica, the home hopes were heaped on sprint hurdler Laura Frlickova and she fulfilled all expectations. Firstly, she ran a European U18 100m hurdles best of 12.86 to win her semi-final, then took gold the following day in 12.97. 

Croatia’s Vita Barbic took an unusual medal double, winning women’s javelin gold and taking discus bronze too.

There was also a unique double victory for Czech twins Nina Radova and Michal Rada as they won back to back 400m hurdles titles in the women’s and men’s finals.

Still only 17, Rada went on to win silver at the World Athletics U20 Championships in Lima, Peru in August.

This event featured 11 gold medals for European athletes: Andreas Halvorsen (men’s 3000m), Hendrik Müller (men’s pole vault), Roko Farkaš (men’s long jump), Jarno van Daalen (men’s shot put), Iosif Kesidis (men’s hammer), Tom Teršek (men’s javelin), Tomas Järvinen (men’s decathlon), Lurdes Gloria Manuel (women’s 400m), Meta Tumba (women’s 400m hurdles), Angelina Topić (women’s high jump) and Jana Koščak (women’s heptathlon).

Records and gold medals galore meant 2024 was a memorable summer for European athletes.  With the World Athletics Championships Tokyo 25, European Athletics Team Championships, Tampere 2025 European Athletics U20 Championships, Bergen 2025 European Athletics U23 Championships on the horizon, another spellbinding summer awaits.

Chris Broadbent for European Athletics




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