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Key events
Oof, that was close down the home straight! Hunt had to give everything to hold off the challenge of Germany’s Gina Luckenkemper. Jael Bestue won bronze for Spain by edging Switzerland’s Fabienne Hoencke. It’s a new European record for Great Britain.
🏅 Great Britain win mixed 4x100m relay!
Amy Hunt brings the baton home for her fourth gold of these championships! Germany ran Britain close in second and Spain came through for bronze.
Final standings
1. Great Britain 39.97sec
2. Germany 40.11
3. Spain 40.42
Mixed 4x100m relay: This is a new event for the European championships so there is no defending champion – the order goes man, woman, man, woman. Italy are without the injured Marcel Jacobs but could still be the team to push Britain closest. Switzerland could too but they’ll have to do it from lane 2.
On your marks, set …
Mixed 4x100m relay: The teams step out on to the track. One interesting battle will be between Britain’s Dina Asher-Smith and Switzerland’s Geraldine di Tizio-Frey on the second leg down the back straight. The inclusion of Jeremiah Azu in place of Romell Glave, the individual 100m champion, is a bit of a surprise for GB but I can’t imagine it will make a great deal of difference. Amy Hunt will bring the baton home.
Women’s long jump: Mihambo and Iapichino overstep the board and cannot improve on their opening jumps. An incredibly focused Sawyers steps out of her starry towel to add 1cm to her first attempt and is now 4cm off the lead. France’s Hilary Kpatcha goes 2nd with a jump of 6.98m.
The Birmingham 2026 mascot bull is also standing behind the runway wrapped in a white towel. Somebody let him have a go.
Women’s javelin: Croatia’s Kolak is leading the way as one of three athletes who have thrown over 60m in their first two attempts. Germany’s Julia Ulbricht and Serbia’s Adriana Vilagos are the other two. A third of the 12-strong field will be cut after three attempts and the remaining athletes will get three more.
Mixed 4x100m relay: There are 15 minutes until the first track event of the evening. Great Britain have announced their quartet as Jeremiah Azu, Dina Asher-Smith, Zharnel Hughes and Amy Hunt, who is going for a fourth gold of the week. Switzerland, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Germany and Portugal make up the field.
Men’s pole vault: Britain’s Owen Heard, who won Commonwealth bronze for England in Glasgow, has bowed out of this final after three failed attempts at 5.70m. Duplantis and Karalis have passed at this height because, well, they’re saving themselves for later. A word for the Belgian 20-year-old Yilo Philtjens, who has dealt with maximum pressure so far to clear both heights at the final attempt and get a PB.
Women’s long jump: Sawyers stands at the top of the runway with a pink and purple starry blanket wrapped round her legs to keep warm. She thrusts it aside and launches herself to an opening jump of 6.95m to go ahead of Mihambo!
Women’s long jump: Malaika Mihambo is the favourite to defend her European title, although the German had a nervous time in qualifying – after two poor jumps, she had to rely on a third and final attempt … and jumped 7.10m. Great Britain’s Jazmin Sawyers, who won Commonwealth gold for England a couple of weeks ago, would do very well indeed to challenge for a medal.
Mihambo heads down the runway first in this final and springs to a benchmark of 6.94m. Only three other athletes in the field have jumped further than that this year. One of them is Italy’s Larissa Iapachino, who raises the bar to 7.00m with her first jump. This should be good.
Women’s javelin: We’ve got another final under way on the infield, with 2016 Olympic champion Sara Kolak of Croatia going top of the early standings with a first throw of 62.43m.
“Why is Mondo Duplantis so good at what he does?” asks Kurt via email – which is surely the question all his competitors have been asking for the past decade.
Aside from all the hard work, dedication and sacrifice, I would say being the son of a pole vaulter and a heptathlete has something to do with it. Duplantis grew up in the United States – he was pole-vaulting aged four and had broken the under-12 world record by the age of 10.
Duplantis is chilling out on the infield at the moment, all tracksuited up, having a good laugh with his main rival Karalis. The rest of the field are slogging their way through the lower heights.
He’s probably got time to work on some lyrics – ‘Mondo’ made his music debut earlier this year.
It’s been quite the Euros for Ireland – and boy have they had backing in Birmingham.
Paul O’Donnell was struggling in the marathon this morning. The Irish fans got him home. “It was incredible, to see green and the tricolours all over the course,” the he said. “The support kept me going. It was much appreciated. It was just a roar: ‘Go Ireland, go Paul.’”
Whether waving flags or roaring for their athletes, Irish fans have made their mark. Ireland’s athletes have taken note, as have broadcasters and organisers. “It feels like a home championships,” O’Donnell, who finished 43rd, told the Associated Press.
Kate O’Connor won the heptathlon yesterday to double Ireland’s gold tally. Mark English had won the men’s 800m final on Thursday, followed minutes later by a silver medal for Rhasidat Adeleke in the women’s 200m. Andrew Coscoran picked up a bronze in the men’s 1500m.
In interviews with Athletics Ireland, Irish competitors marvelled at the support they’ve received in Birmingham. O’Connor described the experience as “probably the closest we’ll ever get to a home games …
It’s a championships that I’ll obviously never forget for winning gold but also never forget the roars, the cheers, the support. I’ve never experienced anything like that before.
Seeing so many kids as well out there that are screaming for autographs and photos … it kind of makes you realise the effect that you have on the country by, I don’t know, running, jumping, throwing, doing all those events as well as you can.
Sarah Healy and Sophie O’Sullivan race in the 1500m final tonight in the closing session of the championships. AP
Men’s pole vault: Mondo Duplantis is one of nine athletes of the 14-strong field to have cleared the first height of 5.55m. Greece’s Emmanouil Karalis – runner-up to Duplantis at the last worlds and Euros – and Great Britain’s Owen Heard also cleared it first time.
Great Britain won double gold in the 4x100m relays last night but the evening was tempered by a security scare. Dozens of athletes, including Britain’s Amy Hunt, and thousands of spectators were caught up in a massive security operation involving armed police at Alexander Stadium.
One coach reported there were armed guards around the warm-up track and bus terminals, while police were seen searching buses. Another leading British coach said they got on a 10.15pm bus that only left at 11.45pm and arrived back at 12.30am. “Fortunately they kept the kitchens open for the athletes,” a team official said.
The West Midlands police said a man in his 30s was arrested and remains in custody for questioning following suspicious behaviour.
Sean Ingle was there and has more …
What happened this morning? Germany’s Amanal Petros and Finland’s Alisa Vainio won the men and women’s marathons in Birmingham. Petros, the Olympic silver medallist, claimed victory in a championship record of 2hr 09min 11sec, beating by 40sec Belgian Koen Naert’s previous best, set in Berlin in 2018. Italy’s Pietro Riva, who took European silver in the half-marathon in Rome two years ago, claimed silver in 2:09.18, just 3sec ahead of Ethiopian-born Israeli Gashau Ayale.
Vainio, who finished fifth at last year’s world champs in Tokyo, clocked a dominant winning time of 2:22.26, her long solo effort beating by almost three minutes the previous championship record set by France’s Christelle Daunay in Zurich in 2014. Hungary took silver through Lili Anna Vindics-Toth, in a personal best of 2:27:21, while Britain’s Abbie Donnelly picked up bronze (2:27:33).
Donnelly became the first British woman to win a marathon medal at the European championships – all while also studying for a PhD in Victorian Imperialism at Loughborough University which is due in just six weeks’ time.
After adding bronze to her European cross-country third place in 2023, Donnelly said: “I really hoped (I could get a medal today), but it was an optimistic goal.
It got tough with about three laps to go because you know the hills by that point and know where the hard points are so it was a proper rollercoaster. The crowd literally did get me to the end. I think I had a bit of an out of body experience, I was just being screamed at which I love.
These two events did not come in a well-timed place in the year so I might give myself tomorrow and then I’ve got a lot of writing left to do.
Israel won the men’s team gold thanks to having four runners in the top 12, ahead of Germany and France. Britain topped the podium in the women’s team event ahead of Italy and Spain. AFP and PA Media
Session schedule
Here’s what’s coming up at Alexander Stadium (all times BST) …
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7.15pm – pole vault (men) final
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7.55pm – long jump (women) final
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8.35pm – 4x100m relay (mixed) final
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8.50pm – 3,000m steeplechase (men) final
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9.13pm – 1500m (women) final
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9.33pm – 4x400m relay (women) final
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9.48pm – 4x400m relay (men) final
Top of medal table
1. Italy 🥇8 🥈6 🥉5 (21)
2. Great Britain 🥇7 🥈5 🥉2 (14)
3. Germany 🥇5 🥈8 🥉4 (17)
4. Netherlands 🥇4 🥈3 🥉5 (12)
5. Norway 🥇4 🥈0 🥉2 (6)
Preamble
Hello and welcome to the final session of the 2026 European athletics championships from Alexander Stadium in Birmingham. It’s been a dominant week for Great Britain’s sprinters, who won both 4x100m relays last night and can complete the set with the mixed 4x100m event this evening. Amy Hunt set her sights on four goals at the start of the week and, after winning in the 100m, 200m and women’s 4x100m relay, she is well on course.
The session starts with the men’s pole vault, which is just as well because Sweden’s Mondo Duplantis tends to be the last person performing at the end of a session. He has broken the world record this year but that was back in March and he was beaten at his home Diamond League in Stockholm by Australia’s Kurtis Marschall in June. Surely he won’t suffer another shock?
A lot of attention will be on the women’s 1500m as Britain’s Georgia Hunter Bell goes for her first European title, but she could be pushed all the way by France’s Agathe Guillemot. Sarah Healy is in with a shout of Ireland’s fifth medal of these championships. We’ve also got men’s and women’s 4×400 relays to finish the night.
There is plenty more to keep an eye on with javelin, long jump and steeplechase finals too. You can be involved by getting in touch.
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