Italian Zaynab Dosso won her first international title as Ukraine’s Yaroslava Mahuchikh won her eighth major senior gold at the Apeldoorn 2025 European Athletics Indoor Championships closed on Sunday (9).
Dosso beat a class international field as she blazed to a new national record and world lead 7.01 to win the women’s 60m, adding gold to the bronze medals she won over 60m at last year’s World Indoor Championships and over 100m at the Roma 2024 European Athletics Championships.
The semifinals earlier in the afternoon had given a portent that something special was on the cards. Defending champion Mujinga Kambundji of Switzerland won the first race in a searing 7.04 with Patrizia van der Weken second in a Luxembourg national record of 7.06.
Dosso then won the second semi final in 7.03. The third race was won by Boglárka Takács in a Hungarian national record of 7.09
The final was restarted with a warning for Kambundji at the first failed attempt. And when they got away second time, it was Dosso and Kambundji who reacted first. Dosso held her form brilliantly to win the gold with Kambundji just 0.01 behind.
Van Der Weken claimed Luxembourg’s first ever medal in the history of the championships, winning bronze by equalling her own recently-set national record.
Title hat trick for Mahuchikh
In the women’s high jump, Ukraine’s Yaroslava Mahuchikh was not quite at her very best, but still had enough in hand to win her third successive title.
She opened with routine first time clearances at 1.92m, 1.95m and 1.97m and by that stage of the competition, only Serbia’s Angelina Topic was still in contention. The bar moved to 1.99m and Mahuchikh failed at her first attempt, but a successful second attempt all but clinched gold.
Topic could not match the world record holder and settled for silver with a best of 1.95m. Mahuchikh chose not to raise the bar further and instead contented herself with another gold medal.
Sweden’s Engla Nilsson won bronze on countback from Germany’s Christina Honsel and Great Britain’s Morgan Lake with a personal best clearance of 1.92m. Mahuchikh’s victory meant Ukraine landed a high jump double following Oleh Doroshchuk victory in the men’s competition on Saturday (9).
“Everything what I have wanted, I have done it,” she said. “I won the gold medal for my country. Of course, I am a little bit disappointed because I wanted to try and jump a bit higher. But I hope at the next championships I will be in better shape.”
Vanninen shows class with pentathlon gold
Saga Vanninen improved on her own Finnish national record to win her first senior international title with a pentathlon score of 4922 points.
The 21-year-old, who already had four age group titles, finished with a time of 2:12.20 in the concluding 800m to go 10th on the European all-time list.
Dutchwoman Sofie Dokter - who was second behind the Finn at European U20 and U23 level - again took the runner-up spot with 4826, a lifetime best of 223 points.
The main drama in the final event came as Ireland's Kate O'Connor ran her fastest ever time by more than two seconds to snatch the bronze medal from Great Britain's Jade O'Dowda.
She overturned the 34-point advantage that O'Dowda had over her after the long jump and smashed her Irish record with 4781 points.
But Vanninen lived up to her billing as the favourite following her significant improvement in Tallinn last month. She ran her quickest ever time in the 60m hurdles with 8.19 and cleared 1.81 in the high jump, a PB in one of her weaker events, as O'Dowda's best ever height of 1.87 led the way.
But, as expected, the Finn shut the door in the shot put and was the only athlete over 15 metres with 15.56.
What largely sealed the silver for Dokter was her fantastic 6.61 long jump personal best, an improvement by 30 centimetres, but Vanninen held firm with a 6.52 PB of her own.
O'Dowda hoped to make the most of her favoured long jump to build a gap to O'Connor. But her 6.43 was closely matched by the Irishwoman's 6.27, her third personal best of the day.
But O'Connor showed phenomenal strength to run bravely after a long day of action to come out on top in 2:11.42 as her British rival faded. O'Dowda - who hadn't taken part in a pentathlon since 2021 - still smashed her lifetime best by 489 points with 4751.
Men's shot put sees rare Romanian gold
Andrei Toader became the first Romanian man to win a European indoor title in 52 years with shot put gold in Apeldoorn.
His best effort of 21.27m came in the final round, but the 27-year-old led the competition throughout after producing a powerful rotation to start off with 21.08m in the opening round.
Sweden's Wictor Pettersson kept Toader firmly on his toes, cutting the deficit to just four centimetres with a strong effort in round five, only for the Romanian to extend his advantage once the final order was sealed.
The margin between third and fourth was even finer right until the end. Tomáš Stanek secured the bronze medal by just two centimetres from Great Britain's captain Scott Lincoln, with 20.75m coming for the Czech putter in the third round.
Toader added the European title to the Balkan gold he won in Belgrade last month.
Elena Antoci, who won the 1500m in 2005, was the last Romanian to win a European indoor title, but Carol Corbu was the last male athlete from their country to do it. He won triple jump gold at Rotterdam 1973, the first time that these championships were held in the Netherlands.
Alex Seftel and Chris Broadbent for European Athletics