The European Athletics U20 Championships will return to the Kadriorg Stadium in Tallinn, Estonia after a decade-long hiatus in 2021.
The last time the championships were held in Tallinn in 2011, the Estonian capital was enjoying some unseasonably warm and sunny weather which created near perfect conditions for the athletes. This is backed up by the statistics as no fewer than 10 championship records were either set or equalled across the four days of competition.
And some of the winners from those championships eight years ago have duly translated their junior exploits onto the senior stage. Mariya Lasitskene, who was competing under her maiden name of Kuchina, equalled the championship record of 1.95m in the high jump and she returned to the Estonian capital in late October this year to be anointed female European Athlete of the Year in recognition of her stellar campaign in which she won her third successive world title.
The class of 2011 was a particularly auspicious one for France whose gold medal-winning athletes from those championships have performed with distinction on the global stage. They won six gold medals in Tallinn, including titles from Jimmy Vicaut in the 100m and 4x100m relay, Pierre Ambroise Bosse in the 800m and Kevin Mayer who won the decathlon title with a since-improved championship record of 8124 points.
On the women’s side, the heptathlon title was won by Dafne Schippers from the Netherlands who would only move to the sprints on a full-time basis four years later. Schippers beat not only soon-to-be world and European medallist Laura Ikauniece from Latvia who won bronze but also reigning world champion Katarina Johnson-Thompson who finished sixth.
Great Britain’s Jodie Williams was one of the individual star performers, storming to a sprint double at those championships - a championship record of 11.18 in the 100m and 22.94 in the 200m - while the German 4x100m relay team won gold in a championship record and European U20 record of 43.42.
Other notable performances included Elena Lashmanova winning the 10,000m race walk in a world U20 record of 42:59.48 and Sweden’s Angelica Bengtsson also clearing a championship record of 4.57m in the pole vault.
Great Britain & NI topped the medal table at the Boras 2019 European Athletics U20 Championships with six gold medals ahead of Italy with five gold medals and Ukraine and the Netherlands with four gold medals apiece. One of the star performers across the championships was Ukraine's Myhaylo Kokhan who set a European U20 record of 84.73m in the hammer.