Tito Odunaike, Lucy Bull and Freddie Rowe all struck gold on a seven-medal ultimate day because the British crew topped the medal desk on the European U18 Championships.
Nice Britain and Northern Eire completed the 2026 European Athletics U18 Championships on Sunday (July 19) because the excellent nation in Rieti, closing out 4 days on the Stadio Raul Guidobaldi with an extra seven medals within the ultimate session to safe prime spot within the general desk — a becoming climax to a championships that produced eight gold medals, three championship data and a string of assertion performances from British athletics‘ brightest teenage abilities.
Three of these medals on the ultimate day had been gold and it was Tito Odunaike who set the tone within the males’s triple soar. The Marshall Milton Keynes athlete, who’s coached by David Johnson and already the youngest ever winner of a British senior indoor title earlier this 12 months, produced a championship document leap of 16.12m — equalling his personal private finest and the world U18 lead — to win by greater than half a metre from his nearest challenger.
Lucy Bull then added a second gold within the girls’s javelin, smashing her private finest with a throw of 56.60m. The Cheltenham & County Harriers athlete, who’s coached by Carolyn Franks, arrived in Italy unbeaten in 2026 and having already set a championship finest efficiency on the English Colleges Championships and she or he duly capped that type with the largest throw of her profession when the title was on the road.
The center-distance runners then did the remainder, with Freddie Rowe storming to males’s 1500m gold in 3:55.33, the Havering AC athlete, coached by Patrick Gahagan, timing his ending burst to perfection. Higher nonetheless for Britain, team-mate Alistair Road adopted him dwelling for silver in 3:56.80, turning the race right into a British one-two.
There was extra silverware for Britain within the males’s javelin, the place Ned Scott produced a PB of 70.02m to take silver, whereas Oliver Downs capped his decathlon marketing campaign with bronze with 7341 — with team-mate Douglas Knox not far behind in fifth in a private better of 7255.
Lucia Bertacchini accomplished the day’s medal haul with bronze within the girls’s 400m hurdles, the Winchester & District athlete clocking a private better of 58.13 in a race that had already produced one of many standout particular person performances of your entire championships.
Britain’s energy in depth was clear throughout the remainder of the ultimate day, too. Leila Newth set two nationwide U18 triple soar data on her technique to fourth place with a better of 13.16m, whereas Poppy Visitor and Sonny Allen each ran effectively within the girls’s 3000m ultimate, ending fifth and sixth in 9:33.84 and 9:34.50 respectively.
The ladies’s medley relay quartet of Shivelle Marshall, Holly Ryan, Darcy Coslett and Bertacchini completed fourth in 2:07.59, although the lads’s crew had been disqualified. Jorjia March got here eighth within the girls’s 800m ultimate in 2:07.84, Isabella Moulton clocked 13.80 to succeed in the 100m hurdles semi-finals and Alessia Scala cleared 1.70m to complete eleventh within the girls’s excessive soar ultimate.
The British successes began with Joe Scanes‘ gold within the males’s 3000m on the opening night time, continued by means of Divine Iheme’s championship document 100m victory and Celine Obinna-Alo’s bronze within the 100m girls’s race and gathered tempo by means of a shocking third day by which Bronson Hearn-Smith struck 200m gold in a championship document 20.70 — stepping in after team-mate Ethan Heggarty was controversially disqualified from his semi-final — whereas Moyo Stumpenhusen set a UK document of 64.92m to win the discus and Samuel James equalled Steve Smith’s 36-year-old British U18 excessive soar document with a championship document 2.25m, with Magnus Riddell including 800m bronze in 1:50.12.
By the point the closing session in Rieti was achieved, the ultimate tally learn eight golds, two silvers and 4 bronzes — 14 medals in whole, comfortably sufficient to prime the desk and one other reminder, following the 2013 European U20 Championships that had been additionally staged on this stadium and produced 9 British golds, that Rieti is a confirmed blissful searching floor for this nation’s age-group athletes.
Away from the British celebrations, the standout particular person efficiency of the closing levels belonged to Czechia’s Linda Botková within the girls’s 400m hurdles. The 16-year-old, already the championship document holder after clocking 56.79 within the heats to interrupt the mark set by her compatriot Nina Radová in 2024, produced one of many runs of the championships within the ultimate itself, storming dwelling in 55.19 to not solely retain the championship document however set a European U20 finest within the course of.
Slovenia’s Živa Remic was additionally spectacular within the girls’s 800m as she improved her personal championship document to win in fashion. At some point after operating 2:04.19 in Saturday’s semi-final, she went by means of the primary lap in 58.53 within the ultimate and went on to run a CBP of two:03.77.
Elsewhere throughout the championships, dwelling favorite Kelly Doualla had given the host nation an evening to recollect together with her sensational 11.14 to win the ladies’s 100m — a European U18 finest that ranked as one of many standout marks of the 12 months at any age group.
