TheEuropean Athletics Championships is a biennial (from 2010)athletics event organised by theEuropean Athletic Association and is recognised as the elite continental outdoor athletics championships for Europe.[1]
First held, for men only, in 1934 inTurin, and separately for women for the first time inVienna in 1938, the Championships took place every four years following the end of theWorld War II, with the exception of the 1969 and 1971 editions, becoming a joint men's and women's competition from the third edition in 1946 inOslo. Since 2010, they have been organised every two years, and when they coincide with theSummer Olympics, themarathon andracewalking events are not contested. From 2016, ahalf-marathonevent has been held in those Olympic years, and both the marathon and half-marathon events held as part of the Championships also function as the principle European elite team events at those distances.
The championships were long dominated byEastern Bloc countries, especially theSoviet Union andEast Germany. About 30 years after the dissolution of both countries, with the2022 edition,Great Britain & Northern Ireland finally took the lead in the all-time medal table, although that is the case only when predecessor and successor states are not combined (i.e. the Soviet Union and Russia). German athletes, who have historically competed for various national teams (Nazi Germany, West Germany, East Germany and present-day reunified Germany), have won most gold medals and most medals in total.
In 2018 and 2022, the European Athletics Championships formed part of the quadrennial multi-sportEuropean Championships, a new event designed and held by individual European sports federations. In 2022, European Athletics announced its intention to withdraw from the multi-sport event for 2026.[2][3]
The 2020 edition set forCharlety Stadium in Paris was cancelled due to theCOVID-19 pandemic, making this the first cancellation of the event since the 1942 championship was abandoned due toWorld War II. The event was not moved to an alternative date, with Munich continuing as the scheduled host in 2022.[4][5][6]
Whilethe European Games of 2015 featured athletics, as did the Games in2023, these events are not editions of the European Athletics Championships. Instead, from 2023, the European Games athletics program consists of alternating editions of the biennialEuropean Athletics Team Championships, a national team championships also arranged byEuropean Athletics which includes European Games medals for individuals.
^[1]ANA was the name, under which Russian athletes competed in the2016 and2018 Championships. Their medals were not included in the official medal table.
A total of 19 men and 12 women have won four or more medals in the same event.[10]Sandra Elkasević (Perković) of Croatia is the only athlete, male or female, to win the same event (the women'sdiscus throw) seven times (between 2010 and 2024).