The final entries for the European Athletics U20 Championships in Grosseto, Italy which begin on 20 July are now available to view here.
There will be very high expectations on home favourite Filippo Tortu, who will be looking to crown his junior career with a brace of medals in the sprints. The 19-year-old, who won a silver medal in the 100m at the World U20 Championships last summer, leads the European U20 lists in both the 100m (10.15) and the 200m (20.34).
Jakob Ingebrigtsen has broken numerous age-group records this summer and the 16-year-old, who doesn’t progress out of the junior ranks until 2020, is the fastest in Europe over three distances this year: 1500m (3:39.92), 5000m (13:49.56) and the 3000m steeplechase (8:26.81).
Another star in action is Sweden’s Armand Duplantis, who has improved the world U20 pole vault record to 5.90m this year. The pole vault is arguably the strongest event of the championships with Ukraine’s Vladyslav Malykhin (5.70m), Greece’s Emmanouil Karalis (5.63m) and Germany’s Bo Kanda Lita Baehre (5.60m) also in medal contention.
The heptathlon will be another highlight featuring a trio of champions: world U18 champion Geraldine Ruckstuhl from Switzerland, world U20 champion Sarah Lagger from Austria and European U18 champion Alina Shukh from Ukraine. Ruckstuhl leads the rankings with 6291 points but Shukh did beat Ruckstuhl at the European Combined Events Team Championships Super League in Tallinn at the start of the month.
Ruckstuhl’s teammate Delia Sclabas was one of the standout performers at the inaugural European Athletics U18 Championships in Tbilisi, Georgia last summer, claiming gold medals in the 1500m and 3000m. She will be attempting another double at U20 level in Grosseto.