World Athletics News

The Olympics Games came back  to Athens 108 years after the first celebration of the modern era and returning to a European host city 12 years after Barcelona had staged its memorable edition.

With the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games now delayed for 12 months, Belgium’s Rio 2016 heptathlon champion Nafissatou Thiam isn’t now expected to compete in her gold medal winning event but has targeted continental glory in other events this summer.

World javelin record-holder Barbora Spotakova is still hoping to salvage something from her 2020 season and she will make a decision about her future in the autumn.

European Athletics is very saddened to hear of the passing of Spanish long distance runner Santiago Llorente at the age of 61 after contracting COVID-19.

The European Athletics Athletes Committee which is chaired by Periklis Iakovakis from Greece has responded to the European Athletics Executive Board requesting the Paris 2020 European Athletics Championships Local Organising Committee "to carry out an immediate and detailed feasibility study for the event, which is currently scheduled for 25-30 August."

The Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games may have been put on hold for the moment but the Olympic Flame has not been extinguished and, in the first of a three-part series, European Athletics and its Green Inspiration Partner Mondo celebrate the achievements of European athletes at the last three Olympic Games on European soil.

The European Athletics Executive Board completed a two-day video conference meeting on Wednesday (25) with the main decision being a request to the Paris 2020 European Athletics Championships Local Organising Committee (LOC) to carry out an immediate and detailed feasibility study for the event, which is currently scheduled for 25-30 August.

The plan for Piotr Malachowski was to win the Olympic discus title in Tokyo this summer and then bid farewell in front of his home fans and supporters at the Kamila Skolimowska Memorial in Chorzow in early September.

Everyone will know Lea Sprunger by now but they might not know too much about her coach. 

The spread of COVID-19 has decimated the global sporting calendar and the European Throwing Cup which was due to take place in Leiria, Portugal on 21-22 March was one of the many events to be either cancelled or postponed.

Like all elite athletes across Europe, Germany’s 2016 Olympic javelin champion Thomas Rohler is working out how to move ahead with his training in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

Bashir Abdi became only the second European athlete in history to break the 2:05-barrier for the marathon in the Tokyo Marathon on 1 March.

Europe Athletics President Svein Arne Hansen suffered a serious cerebrovascular accident, commonly known as a stroke, while at home during the evening of Sunday 15 March.

Sweden’s Armand Duplantis and Germany’s Konstanze Klosterhalfen have been voted European Athletes of the Month for February 2020.

Following four editions of the annual European Indoor Games, the European Indoor Championships formally came into being in 1970 when Vienna defied an unseasonable early spring freeze to lift the curtain on the event on 14-15 March.

The European Athletics Executive Board will host its previously scheduled meeting via teleconference on 24-25 March and top of the agenda will be discussions concerning the coronavirus (COVID-19) and its impact on the various European Athletics events scheduled for 2020 and beyond.

Blanka Vlasic will forego any attempt to qualify for her fifth Olympic Games but the Croatian hasn’t called time on her venerable career just yet.

European Athletics is very saddened to hear of the passing of 1952 Olympic javelin champion Dana Zatopkova who died on Friday (13) at the age of 97.

Vienna was snowed in. This was not really a surprise in the land of winter sports but the white stuff came at just the wrong time, briefly threatening the very first edition of the European Athletics Indoor Championships which were meant to take place on 14-15 March 1970. 

Voting for the men's and women's European Athlete of the Month for February 2020 is now open across European Athletics’ social media channels.