European Athletics President Dobromir Karamarinov hailed the continent's successes at the World Athletics Championships Budapest 23, which concluded after nine days of competition on Sunday night.
"I would like to congratulate every single competitor who represented a European Athletics Member Federation at this year’s World Athletics Championships," said Karamarinov, who was present in the Hungarian capital as both European Athletics President and a World Athletics Council Member.
"To qualify for these championships alone is an outstanding achievement worthy of note and one that is only achieved through hard work and dedication.
"Many of those who were in Budapest will, I am sure, represent their countries at next year’s European Athletics Championships in Rome and I am already looking forward to seeing them in action once again, this time on the continental stage in what is the most important and prestigious competition in the portfolio of our won organisation."
"In Budapest, there were 16 European gold medals – the biggest number from our continent's athletes since 2017 – who came from nine Member Federations. In addition, there were another 31 silver and bronze medals won and 18 nations won a medal of one colour or another."
"This means that almost a third of our Member Federations had at least one medallist in this global competition, once again showing the strength of our sport at the very highest level across the entirety of Europe and across the spectrum of athletics events from sprints to race walking."
"In addition, there were two championship records set by European athletes, five world leading marks, 36 national records, a huge number of personal bests and I have to mention Great Britain’s Matthew Hudson-Smith, who set a European 400m record of 44.26 and broke a record that had stood for 26 years.
"After the successes of nine days of successful and very enjoyable competition in the Hungarian capital, I look forward to honouring many of the winners in person at our glittering Golden Tracks annual awards night which this year will be Vilnius, Lithuania on 21 October where we will announce the European Athletes of the Year for 2023," added Karamarinov.
In addition, to the 2023 European Athletes of the Year, the Golden Tracks ceremony in October will also see the announcement of the winners of the 2023 European Rising Star of the Year award.
Candidates for all the Golden Tracks awards, and voting details. will be announced in mid-September.