Five major storylines to follow at the European Athletics Championships, from Ingebrigtsen’s return to the 800m race of the season

The biggest stars in European athletics head to Birmingham for the 2026 European Athletics Championships with continental titles and in some cases world records on the line, just a week after the close of the Commonwealth Games.

Coming in a fallow year between World Championships and Olympics the Europeans are the major target for most eligible athletes over the outdoor season and the competition is set to be fierce as ever.

Here are the major athletes and races to watch ahead of the week’s action.

The women’s 800m is the headline event, even in a stacked programme. Olympic champion Keely Hodgkinson has had a stop-start outdoor season, suffering surprise back-to-back defeats and withdrawing in tears from British national championships earlier this summer after tweaking her hamstring. But she returned to winning ways on home soil at the London Diamond League last month, and starts as one of the favourites in a glittering field.

Switzerland’s Audrey Werro has been the surprise package of the season and is the outright favourite after running the fastest in the world this year, but Femke Broeders-Bol – having converted her brilliance in her normal discipline of 400m hurdles to the 800m – is also a potent force. Birmingham’s Alexander Stadium could yet see one of track and field’s oldest world records fall: the controversial 1:53.28 set by Czechoslovakian athlete Jarmila Kratochvilova in 1983.

Hodgkinson had initially targeted the London Diamond League to attempt to break the record, having smashed the world indoor record in March last year. But it now looks as though Werro, who became the first woman since Kratochvilova to run under 1:54 – twice – in Paris and Stockholm this year, is the best placed to finally topple that mark.

The stage is set for a hugely entertaining race – the only drawback is that newly crowned Commonwealth 800m champion Georgia Hunter Bell is opting not to compete over the distance in Birmingham, focusing on the 1500m instead and avoiding a mouthwatering four-way clash.

Norwegian great Jakob Ingebrigsten has not raced at all in 2026 after undergoing surgery on his Achilles tendon in January, with his grand comeback taking place this week as he runs in the 5,000m. The injury also heavily impacted his 2025; he obviously struggled with it at the World Championships in September, when he failed to make it out of the 1,500m heats and finished a distant 10th in the 5,000m.

He is the reigning European champion in both the 5,000m and 1,500m but has opted to focus on the longer distance only as he returns to competition, writing on social media: “Anyone who has watched me race over the years will know that competition is what drives me. I am healthy, training has been going well and after discussing with my team, we reached the conclusion that there is no reason not to race.

“What better way than to return to the European Championships, where I have so many golden memories. I’ll be lining up for the 5000m August 10th.”

Ingebrigtsen has never been defeated at a European Championships, winning both the 1,500m and 5,000m titles at each of the last three editions, going back to when he was just 17 in Berlin in 2018, and made history in Rome two years ago as the first man to win six gold medals.

One constant of athletics in recent years has been Mondo Duplantis’ crushing supremacy in the pole vault. But the world record holder suffered a shock defeat – his first in three years – at this summer’s Diamond League event in Stockholm, with Australian Kurtis Marschall beating him on Duplantis’ home soil.

The Swede never really looked himself and failed at 6m and 6.05m, only finishing second as he cleared 5.80m with two-time world bronze medallist Marschall clearing 5.90m.

Duplantis set a new world record of 6.28m at the same arena last year but his aura of invincibility took a huge dent this time around, while he then withdrew from the London Diamond League with a thigh strain, after a long conversation with his father and manager on the sidelines.

With the European Championships looming the decision was made to withdraw as a precaution, but the events of the last few weeks mean that – for once – the men’s pole vault title isn’t sewn up before the athletes even step onto the runway. Duplantis arrives in Birmingham looking to win a fourth successive European title and re-establish his supremacy after that blip, setting up a fascinating battle with the likes of major rival Emmanouil Karalis of Greece.

While Hodgkinson and Hunter Bell headline the longer distance races for the home nation, there is a raft of British interest in the sprint events, most notably in a stacked women’s 100m field.

Defending champion Dina Asher-Smith has won six European golds and could become the most successful athlete in the history of the event if she wins one more, doubling up after glory in Rome two years ago. She pulled out of the Commonwealth Games with a focus on defending her title but will face opposition from rival Daryll Neita, who is second behind Asher-Smith in the all-time list of fastest Brits over the distance and is a two-time European individual medallist herself.

World 200m silver medallist Amy Hunt is competing in both events in Birmingham; her slow start may rule her out of contention over the shorter distance but her immense closing speed makes her a major favourite in a fascinating 200m race, where she will also come up against former world champion Asher-Smith. British national champion Success Eduan will also be in action, giving the home crowd in Birmingham multiple athletes to cheer on.

One major absence from Birmingham is new mile world record holder Josh Kerr. The Scot won the 3,000m world indoor title in March, but his season was entirely built around a tilt at Hicham El Guerrouj’s 27-year-old mile record, which he shattered in stunning fashion at the London Diamond League, running it in 3:42.66.

The 28-year-old is always one to talk a big game and his tilt at the record was rarely out of the spotlight as he shared his training for the catchily named ‘Project 222’ – the number of seconds he would have to run to break it – in the build-up. He wrote “I ran 3.42 at the London Diamond League. July 18th, 2026” in his notebook every day; he would plunge in an ice bath for 222 seconds, living and breathing the project.

His superb form carried him into the Commonwealth Games, another important target for him, especially as they were held on home soil in Glasgow. The mile there was a very different race – he won in 3:54.12 and had time to gee up the crowd as he surged clear down the home straight – but the gold was what he came for.

There had been talk that having completed those two goals he would turn his attention to the 1,500m world record, also held by El Guerrouj, of 3:26 flat. But that is unlikely to happen this year, despite his blistering form, and nor is an appearance in Birmingham at all. He told The Guardian: “I will hold the 1500m world record in my career. But I’m not in a rush to do that. I think we are flying a little close to the sun at the moment.” His absence opens the door to compatriot Jake Wightman, who was sixth in the mile in Glasgow.