European Athletics Championships 2026
England has hosted the Olympics – twice, the World Championships, the World Indoors, the Commonwealth Games, but never the European Champs – until now. The Alexander Stadium was renovated a few years ago for the 2022 Commonwealth Games. It is now a magnificent stadium. They have added a temporary stand for this week, the Matthew Hudson-Smith Stand, to recognize the local boy who made good. There were 11,844 in for the first morning, which, inevitably, was just prelims and qualifying.
There were great performances and disappointments. Just to pick out one. It has been a great season for Stephen Mackenzie. He jumped 8.20 to win the British Championship. Just over a week ago he took a medal at the Commonwealth Games. This morning he was 6 cm short of qualification with 7.85. He told me with a smile: “It was all I had in my legs today so I’ll take this going forward”. It is hard when you do your best and find on the day it isn’t good enough.
The morning session may have “only” been prelims, but it gave the uninitiated an introduction to the diversity of our sport with 11 events of running, jumping and throwing. Among the races there was a mixture of methods of qualification – first three in a race, fastest 12 overall, a combination of the two. I am sure it is intended to be fair to the athletes but can be confusing for the spectators, but at least they have Kath Merry and Geoff Wightman to guide them.
One moan from your correspondent. There was a women’s 100 preliminary round this morning with 12 athletes qualifying for the semi-finals alongside 12 who were given a bye/wild card to the semi-final. It just seems intrinsically unfair to ask some athletes to run two rounds to reach the final and others just one. Not just the run but the effort of leaving the hotel, traveling across the city, warming up, warming down and traveling back to the hotel – while others sit with their feet up.
The weather is interesting. It always is in England! At one stage Kath Merry was going on about the beautiful sunshine. My neighbor, who had just put on her jacket, and I, who was regretting not bringing fine, just burst out laughing as the wind rattled our ears.
