European Athletics has announced the 2024 men’s and women’s European Athlete of the Year and Rising Star finalists in each category.
The winners will be crowned and presented with their trophies at the Golden Tracks award night which takes place in Skopje, Republic of North Macedonia on 26 October and will be streamed live on the European Athletics YouTube channel.
Women’s European Athlete of the Year finalists
- Femke Bol (NED)
- Keely Hodgkinson (GBR)
- Yaroslava Mahuchikh (UKR)
All three finalists won gold medals outdoors at the Roma 2024 European Athletics Championships and Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
It was also a record-breaking year for Bol who improved her world indoor 400m record to 49.17 to win world indoor gold in Glasgow while Mahuchikh broke Stefka Kostadinova’s legendary world high jump record of 2.09m with a 2.10m clearance.
Hodgkinson also moved to sixth on the world all-time 800m list with 1:54.61, the fastest time by a European since Jarmila Kratochvilova set the world record of 1:53.28 in 1983.
Men’s European Athlete of the Year finalists
- Armand Duplantis (SWE)
- Jakob Ingebrigtsen (NOR)
- Miltiadis Tentoglou (GRE)
It’s been another memorable season for the three finalists, all of whom won gold medals at the World Athletics Indoor Championships, European Athletics Championships and Olympic Games in 2024.
Duplantis set world pole vault records of 6.24m, 6.25m and 6.26m across the season while Ingebrigtsen broke the seemingly untouchable world 3000m record with 7:17.55 in Silesia to take three seconds off Daniel Komen’s legendary mark.
Meanwhile, Tentoglou took his tally of major long jump titles to 11, his run of successes including a third European outdoor title in Rome with a championship record of 8.65m.
Women’s Rising Star finalists
- Phoebe Gill (GBR)
- Jana Koscak (CRO)
- Adriana Vilagos (SRB)
Gill produced an extraordinary 1:57.86 800m clocking in Belfast to take almost two seconds off a European U18 800m best which had stood since 1979 en route to her Olympic debut in Paris at 17.
Meanwhile, Vilagos won her second European javelin silver medal at the age of 20 while Koscak, who withdrew injured at the 2023 European U20 Championships won world U20 heptathlon gold in Lima.
Men’s Rising Star finalists
- Tomas Jarvinen (CZE)
- Iosif Kesidis (CYP)
- Niels Laros (NED)
Jarvinen and Kesidis were two of the most dominant winners at the World Athletics U20 Championships in Lima in the decathlon and hammer respectively.
Laros also excelled at the Olympic Games in Paris, finishing sixth in the 1500m final in a European U20 record of 3:29.54.
From a long-list of 10 athletes, the three finalists in each category were decided based on a four-part voting process with a public vote, a Member Federation vote, a media vote and a European Athletics expert panel vote each accounting for one-quarter of the overall vote.
Last year’s European Athletes of the Year were Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Femke Bol from the Netherlands while Serbia’s Angelina Topic and Italy’s Mattia Furlani were crowned Rising Stars at the 2023 Golden Tracks awards night in Vilnius.
Tune in live on the European Athletics YouTube channel on 26 October to find out who will be crowned European Athletes of the Year and Rising Stars this year!