by Stuart Weir
This feature on the 2022 Golden Tracks Awards was written by Stuart Weir and is about the award night sponsored by European Athletics, which was held on 22 October 2022 in Tallin, Estonia.
European Athletics is at a fantastic place right now. The plethora of talented, thoughtful, and photogenic athletes who resonate across Europe is exciting. It is great for the sport, and the youth that are attracted as participants and as fans is impressive as well.
The Golden Tracks awards was also visited by World Athletics. It is extremely important that the global and continetal federations play well together. The future of the sport is at stake.
This feature is by European senior writer Stuart Weir.
Bol, Duplantis, and Ingebrigtsen crowned 2022 European Athletes of the Year.
Femke Bol, Armand Duplantis, and Jakob Ingebrigtsen have been crowned European Athletes of the Year at the Golden Tracks award ceremony, which was held in the Estonian capital of Tallinn on Saturday evening (October 22, 2022).
Fellow European champions Elina Tzengko and Mykolas Alekna, who both won gold medals in Munich as teenagers, were crowned this year’s Rising Stars.
Bol becomes the fourth Dutch winner of the women’s European Athlete of the Year trophy in eight years, following in the footsteps of Dafne Schippers (2014, 2015) and Sifan Hassan (2021).
Bol was one of the standout athletes of the European Athletics Championships, winning a unique and remarkable treble. She began her campaign in the Bavarian city with victory in the 400m in 49.44 – the fastest winning time at the championships for 36 years – before winning the 400m hurdles in a championship record of 52.67.
She was one of three finalists for the women’s European Athlete of the Year trophy alongside Ukraine’s world indoor and European high jump champion Yaroslava Mahuchikh and Belgium’s world and European heptathlon champion Nafissatou Thiam.
