European athletes enjoyed a hugely successful campaign as a collective at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, winning 20 gold medals on offer and 51 medals in total.
These numbers compare very favourably to the respective tallies from the last Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro where European athletes mustered up 11 gold medals and 36 medals combined.
This means that European athletes were responsible for winning 35.4 percent of overall medals and just over 40 percent of the gold medals.
Ten European nations, including Mariya Lasitskene who was competing under the Russian Olympic Committee banner, came away with gold medals with 17 nations leaving Tokyo with medalware of some description.
And more than half of European Athletics’ Member Federations had at least one athlete place inside the top-eight in a final. Thirty European countries fielded at least one top-eight finisher in a final to ensure they would feature on the placing table.
Behind the United States who were less dominant than usual but still won seven gold medals to top the medal table, Italy finished second on the medal table with their brilliant five gold medals courtesy of Gianmarco Tamberi (high jump), Marcell Jacobs (100m), Massimo Stano (20km race walk), Antonella Palmisano (20km race walk) and their men’s 4x100m team.
This was Italy’s best ever athletics campaign at an Olympic Games, improving on their three gold medals from the boycotted 1980 and 1984 Olympic Games.
Poland also enjoyed their best ever Olympic Games in athletics in Tokyo. From their 14 medals across all sports in Tokyo, nine of them came in athletics including all four of their gold medals. Anita Wlodarczyk created history by becoming the first woman in Olympic history to win three successive gold medals before Wojciech Nowicki made it a Polish double in the men’s hammer.
There were significant firsts and lasts for their other two gold medallists. Poland became the first ever winners of the mixed 4x400m relay and Dawid Tomala had the distinction of becoming the last winner of the men’s 50km race walk, following in the footsteps of the great Robert Korzeniowski who won three successive titles in the event between 1996 and 2004.
Having only won one medal at the last six Olympic Games combined, the Dutch team excelled in Tokyo with two gold medals and eight in total. Three of those medals came from the tireless Sifan Hassan who won 5000/10,000m gold and bronze in the 1500m while the Dutch men’s 4x400m team shaved a whopping five seconds off their national record to win silver in the 4x400m final.
Norway also achieved their best ever Olympic campaign with two gold medals courtesy of Karsten Warholm in the 400m hurdles and Jakob Ingebrigtsen in the 1500m. Eivind Henriksen also achieved Norway’s first ever medal in the hammer with silver behind Nowicki.
Even though Bosnia & Herzegovina didn’t have a medal to celebrate in the athletics programme, Amel Tuka made history by becoming the first athlete from his nation to reach an Olympic medal in the 800m.
Luxembourg also had a finalist in the men’s 1500m. Charles Grethen shattered his national record in the semifinal with 3:32.86 to qualify on time. He became the first athlete from Luxembourg to reach a track final since Josy Barthel who won the 1500m title at the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki.