With three major championships on the calendar, 2024 has been a particular busy season for Europe’s athletes.
But it has also been a highly successful year, particularly for a handful of athletes who have come away with medals from the World Athletics Indoor Championships, European Athletics Championships and the Olympic Games.
With the track season approaching its close, the attention will turn to the Golden Tracks award ceremony in Skopje, North Macedonia on 26 October when the women’s and men’s European Athletes of the Year and Rising Stars will be crowned.
And many of the treble medal-winning athletes are likely to feature in the long-lists for the awards which will be announced in mid-September.
Armand Duplantis
Armand Duplantis is amassing another legendary season in the pole vault and the Swede has added another three major titles to his list of accolades.
Duplantis hasn’t been beaten in a major event since 2019 although he did flirt with disaster at the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow, needing three attempts at 5.85m before going on to retain his world title with a 6.05m clearance.
Even by his own admission, Duplantis wasn’t at his very best during the indoor season but the 24-year-old was in vintage form outdoors.
He won his third successive European pole vault title in Rome, improving the championship record for the third time with a 6.10m clearance before three very good attempts at what would then have been a world record 6.25m.
But with the stage to himself at the Olympic Games in Paris, Duplantis propelled himself over the world record height of 6.25m on his third attempt to crown his Olympic title defence.
His exploits on the biggest sporting stage of all also helped Duplantis to surpass the significant landmark of one million followers on Instagram, making him one of the most followed athletes on social media.
Femke Bol
Femke Bol has achieved the remarkable feat of winning eight major medals across three major championships this year.
Bol began her season by winning the world indoor 400m title in Glasgow in a world record of 49.17 - the third time Bol has broken the world indoor record - before anchoring the Netherlands to gold in the 4x400m relay.
At the European Athletics Championships in Rome, Bol successfully defended her 400m hurdles and 4x400m titles and was also part of her country’s bronze medal-winning team in the inaugural mixed 4x400m final.
And while the two-time European Athlete of the Year was bitterly disappointed to ‘only’ come away with bronze in the 400m hurdles, Bol was the hero of their mixed 4x400 team, running a sparkling anchor leg of 47.93 to overhaul the United States for the title.
And behind the Americans, Bol turned on the after-burners again to anchor the Netherlands to silver in the 4x400m relay in a Dutch record of 3:19.50, the fastest time by a European quartet in over 30 years.
Miltiadis Tentoglou
Miltiadis Tentoglou is still only 26 but he has taken his title haul in major events up to eleven after winning three more titles in 2024.
Tentoglou retained his world indoor long jump title in Glasgow - in the same arena where he won his first European indoor title in 2019 - albeit by just one centimetre ahead of the precocious Italian Mattia Furlani.
The pair were to cross paths again a few months later at the European Athletics Championships in Rome where Tentoglou flew to a championship record and lifetime best of 8.65m - just one centimetre short of the long-standing Greek record of 8.88m set by Loúis Tsatoumas in 2007 - to come away with third successive title ahead of Furlani who won silver with a world U20 record of 8.38m.
Tentoglou then went on to defend his Olympic title in Paris with relative ease, his second round effort of 8.48m taking the victory by 12 centimetres from Jamaica’s Wayne Pinnock (8.36m) with 19-year-old Furlani taking his third major medal of the year with bronze (8.34m).
Other treble medallists…
Cyrena Samba-Mayela has enjoyed her most successful and consistent season to date, showing her decision to relocate to the United States has handsomely paid off. After winning silver in the 60m hurdles in Glasgow, Samba-Mayela blasted to 100m hurdles gold in Rome in 12.31 to break a championship record which had stood since 1986.
A bout of coronavirus post-Rome left Samba-Mayela struggling for fitness in the build-up to Paris 2024 but the Frenchwoman rediscovered her best form just in time, winning France’s only medal of the athletics programme with silver in an incredibly competitive final in 12.34 and only missing out on gold by 0.01.
Yaroslava Mahuchikh was beaten for gold at the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow but this proved to be just a small footnote in a season which saw the Ukrainian conquer the world record with a 2.10m clearance and win the European and Olympic high jump titles in Rome and Paris respectively.
Yemisi Ogunleye is one of the most improved athletes of the season as evidenced by her trio of major medals in the shot put. A surprise silver medallist at the World Indoor Championships and a bronze medallist at the European Championships, the German seized her chance in an unpredictable rain-affected shot put final in Paris 2024 by launching a gold medal throw of 20.00m on her final attempt.
Karsten Warholm won 400m silver at the World Athletics Indoor Championships before retaining his European 400m hurdles title in Rome on the road to Paris 2024. In a reverse of the result from Tokyo 2020, Warholm had to settle for silver in the 400m hurdles by his great rival Rai Benjamin.
Noor Vidts retained her world indoor pentathlon title in Glasgow before the Belgian added European and Olympic heptathlon bronze medals to her list of achievements.
Emmanouil Karalis had joined his great friend Armand Duplantis on the podium at all three major events this year. After bronze in Glasgow, Karalis improved to silver in Rome before winning another bronze medal in Paris 2024.
The Dutch 4x400m relay team have won medals in every major event now and along with Bol, Lieke Klaver, Lisanne de Witte and Cathelijn Peeters were also part of their medal-winning teams in all three major championships.
Klaver also won individual 400m silver in Glasgow and bronze in Rome and was part of the Netherlands' gold medal-winning team in the mixed 4x400m relay in Paris.
Steven Mills for European Athletics