Four of the last 10 winners of the women's Rising Star trophy, an award first handed out in 2007, have gone on to win Olympic titles in their careers and six of them have also won European senior titles.
Who will follow in their illustrious footsteps at the Golden Tracks award night in Skopje, Republic of North Macedonia on Saturday evening?
The three finalists are Great Britain's Phoebe Gill, Croatia's Jana Koscak and Serbia's Adriana Vilagos.
This year's Golden Tracks award night starts at 2000 local time (CEST) and will be streamed live of the European Athletics YouTube channel when the winners will be announced and presented with their trophies!
2023 - Angelina Topic (SRB)
Gold at the European Athletics U20 Championships in 2023 was something of a formality for Angelina Topic who had finished fourth a few months prior at the European Athletics Indoor Championships and won bronze at the 2022 European Athletics Championships at the age of 17.
Topic upgraded her bronze medal from Munich 2022 to silver in Roma 2024 but her bid for a possible Olympic medal was cruelly derailed by an ankle fracture sustained in qualifying.
However, Topic made a seemingly unlikely return a few weeks later at the World Athletics U20 Championships in Peru, capping her u20 career with gold in Lima.
2022 - Elina Tzengko (GRE)
Elina Tzengko hadn’t always produced her best form in the big events but the Greek landed gold at the Munich 2022 European Athletics Championships with a lifetime best of 65.81m just three weeks before celebrating her 20th birthday.
Tzengko won European U23 gold in Espoo the following season and while the Greek is yet to win another major senior medal yet, she underlined her consistency by reaching both the European and Olympic javelin finals in 2024.
2021 - Femke Bol (NED)
Femke Bol showed glimpses of her immense talent in the pandemic-stricken 2020 season but the Dutchwoman truly broke through when competition resumed in 2021, winning 400m and 4x400m gold at the 2021 European Athletics Indoor Championships and bronze in the 400m hurdles at the delayed Tokyo Olympics Games in a European record of 52.03.
Since then, Bol has amassed a medal haul which can barely be summed up in a few sentences.
However, among the highlights have been a historic and unprecedented treble in Munich 2022, gold in the 400m hurdles and 4x400m at the 2023 World Athletics Championships, gold in the 400m at the 2024 World Athletics Indoor Championships in a world record of 49.17 and mixed 4x400m gold at the Olympic Games Paris 2024.
Bol was also crowned European Athlete of the Year in both 2022 and 2023 and is in contention to become the first woman to win this accolade on three occasions.
2019 - Yaroslava Mahuchikh
Just two weeks after celebrating her 18th birthday, Yaroslava Mahuchikh soared over 2.04m to win the high jump silver medal at the 2019 World Athletics Championships in Doha, only missing out on the gold medal on countback. Mahuchikh was also crowned European U20 champion in Boras, her third major age-group title.
Since then, Mahuchikh has swept every major title available, completing the set with Olympic gold in Paris this summer. In the same city only a few weeks prior, Mahuchikh soared over 2.10m to break Stefka Kostadinova’s long-standing world record of 2.09m which had stood since 1987.
After winning the Rising Star award in 2019, will Mahuchikh become women's European Athlete of the Year on Saturday evening?
2018 - Elvira Herman
Elvira Herman was one of the breakthrough athletes at the 2018 European Athletics Championships, spoiling the German party in Berlin with her victory over local hopes Cindy Roleder and Pamela Dutkiewicz in the 100m hurdles.
The following year, the Belarusian won European U23 100m hurdles gold as well as bronze in the 60m hurdles at the 2019 European Athletics Indoor Championships.
2017 - Yuliia Levchenko
A bronze medal in the high jump at the 2017 European Athletics Indoor Championships was the beginning of a breakthrough season for Yuliia Levchenko which peaked with an unexpected silver at the World Athletics Championships in London when she was still a teenager.
The Ukrainian improved her lifetime best to 2.02m in 2019 but just fell short of a second medal at that summer's World Athletics Championships, finishing fourth on countback.
2016 - Nafissatou Thiam
Nafissatou Thiam’s reign in the heptathlon began in earnest when she fulfilled the immense talent she had displayed in the U20 ranks when she triumphed at the 2016 Olympic Games, beating the reigning champion and inaugural Rising Star winner Jessica Ennis-Hill for the accolade.
Thiam made history at Paris 2024 by winning her third successive Olympic heptathlon gold medal to accompany her trio of European titles and world titles from 2017 and 2022.
Her list of accolades is such that many consider Thiam to be the greatest heptathlete in history.
2015 - Noemi Zbaren
A prolific and excellent junior who competed for Switzerland at the London 2012 Olympic Games at the age of 18, Zbaren’s annus mirabilis came in 2015 when she won the European U23 100m hurdles title before making the final at the 2015 World Athletics Championships.
But this momentum was cruelly derailed by an ACL rupture in 2016, forcing Zbaren to miss the majority of the next three seasons.
Truthfully, the Swiss hurdler never recaptured her best form but Zbaren did return from adversity to qualify for the 2022 World Athletics Championships and European Athletics Championships, reaching the semifinals at both events before retiring to focus on her career as a scientist.
2014 - Mariya Kuchina
The Russian was beaten by soon-to-be Olympic champion Ruth Beitia at the 2014 European Athletics Championships - her last defeat in a big event - but Kuchina did land gold on the global stage a few months prior at the 2014 World Athletics Indoor Championships.
Better known by her married name Lasitskene, the Russian was arguably the dominant high jumper of the late 2010s, winning three successive world outdoor titles and gold at the Olympic Games in Tokyo as an Authorised Neutral Athlete.
2013 - Anita Hinriksdottir
Anita Hinriksdottir has the distinction of being the only Icelandic winner of any award at the Golden Tracks. She was crowned Rising Star in 2013 having won 800m gold at both the World Athletics U18 Championships and European Athletics U20 Championships in back-to-back weeks.
Hinriksdottir didn’t quite hit the heady heights of her teenage days but she did take the 2017 European Athletics Indoor Championships 800m bronze medal and she also made the final of the 2016 World Athletics Indoor Championships.
Steven Mills for European Athletics