The European Athletics U23 Championships take place in Bergen, Norway from 17-20 July and it is shaping up to be an excellent championships for both Serbia and Germany in the women’s field events.
And in the heptathlon, watch out for Finland’s Saga Vanninen, one of two individual championships from the European Athletics Indoor Championships to be competing in Bergen. Vanninen will be aiming to win back-to-back titles having triumphed on home soil in Espoo two years ago.
Bergen 2025 will be streamed live in its entirety through the European Athletics website courtesy of Eurovision Sport where additional streams are available and will be accompanied by expert English-language commentary.
Daily highlights will also be published on the European Athletics YouTube channel.
Jumps
From the seven individual medallists from the Apeldoorn 2025 European Athletics Indoor Championships who are due to compete in Bergen, two of them will contest the women’s high jump.
The entry-list is headed by Serbia’s reigning world and European U20 champion Angelina Topic and Sweden’s Engla Nilsson, the silver and bronze medallists respectively behind Ukraine’s Yaroslava Mahuchikh who holds the championship record at the European Athletics U23 Championships with 2.00m.
For Topic, this was the third senior continental medal of her career at the age of 19 - Topic turns 20 the week after the championships - whereas for Nilsson, this was her first major medal of any description. With a lifetime best of 1.87m, Nilsson was aiming just to reach the final in Apeldoorn but the Swede improved to 1.92m and came away with the bronze medal with it.
But far from being a straightforward head-to-head, the field also includes Belgium’s Merel Maes and Britt Weerman from the Netherlands who both have the credentials to come away with the gold medal.
Maes recently defeated Topic for victory at the European Athletics Team Championships 2nd Division while Weerman also has a senior medal dating back to the 2023 European Athletics Indoor Championships in Istanbul where she won silver at the age of 19.
The pole vault lacks a standout favourite but Great Britain’s Gemma Tutton is one of the in-form athletes, vaulting a lifetime best of 4.45m at the European Athletics Team Championships in Madrid and surpassing expectations with a fifth-place finish overall.
In the long jump, Spain’s Evelyn Yankey leads the entry-list with 6.79m ahead of Poland’s Anna Matuszewicz and Bulgaria’s reigning European U20 champion Plamena Mitkova who have season’s bests of 6.71m and 6.70m respectively.
But hosts Norway won’t be without medal chances either. Ida Andrea Breigan is fourth on the entry-list with 6.65m, just three centimetres shy of the Norwegian record.
The women’s triple jump entry-lists features a cast of jumpers who are on the cusp of surpassing the 14 metre-line. The entry-list is headed by Serbia’s Aleksandrija Mitrovic with 13.92m but also watch out for France’s Clemence Rougier, the 2022 European U18 champion.
Throws
The Germans have an embarrassment of riches in the throwing events at this age-group level in particular and it would be wholly surprising if their contingent didn’t come away from Bergen with a brace of gold medals.
Reigning European U20 champion Nina Chioma Ndubuisi, who has since relocated to the University of Texas to study and train, has improved in the shot put to 18.91m and leads the entry-list by almost two metres from Croatia’s Lucija Leko, the only other athlete to have broken the 17 metre-barrier this year with 17.10m.
Fellow German Aileen Kuhn also leads the entry-list in the hammer with 72.48m albeit by a narrower margin from a cast of familiar names including Ireland’s Nicola Tuthill who made history earlier this year by becoming the first ever Irish athlete to win any event at the European Throwing Cup, winning the U23 division of the hammer and beating Kuhn in the process.
Another recognisable name on the entry-list is Valentina Savva, the reigning European U20 hammer champion who has improved to 69.56m in 2025. And if the Cypriot doesn’t prevail against her older opponents in Bergen, she will enjoy another opportunity in two years’ time as she is still eligible for the next edition of the European Athletics U23 Championships in Bydgoszcz in 2027.
Other names to watch in the hammer include Sweden’s Thea Lofman, who has the best lifetime best in the field at 73.31m from last year, and Italy’s 2022 world U20 champion Rachele Mori whose lifetime best stands at 69.04m.
Very little on paper separates the two top-ranked discus throwers. France’s Marie Josee Bovele Linaka leads the entry-list with 60.06m just ahead of Germany’s Milina Wepiwe - whose younger sister Nadjela won the European U18 title in the same discipline last year - with 59.75m.
However, one event the German throwers are unlikely to win is the women’s javelin which features two-time European silver medallist Adriana Vilagos from Serbia who was crowned women’s Rising Star at last year’s Golden Tracks award ceremony in Skopje, North Macedonia.
Vilagos has improved to 67.22m this year which puts the decade-old championship record of 65.60m set by Germany’s Christin Hussong in Tallinn 2015 into clear view.
The only other thrower on the entry-list to have surpassed the 60 metre-line is Czechia’s Petra Sicakova. While Vilagos handily defeated the seniors at the European Throwing Cup in March, Sicakova took full advantage of Vilagos’ absence to win the U23 javelin with 60.26m.
Heptathlon
Saga Vanninen will be aiming to close the chapter on her illustrious age-group career by retaining her heptathlon title in Bergen.
And a big breakthrough in the seven-event competition looks to be on the cards. The Finn dominated the indoor season, taking gold medals in the space of a fortnight at both the European and World Athletics Indoor Championships in the pentathlon.
After a busy and successful indoor campaign, Vanninen is yet to contest a heptathlon this season but an improvement on her lifetime best of 6391 points from 2023 looks overdue. And if she does better her lifetime best in Bergen, it is very likely she will also revise the championship record of 6396 points set by Latvia’s Aiga Grabuste in 2009.
The entry-list includes two other improving combined eventers with lifetime bests in excess of 6300 points: Germany’s Serina Reidel (6322 points) and Great Britain’s Abigail Pawlett (6315 points). And with a lifetime best of 12.96 in the 100m hurdles, expect the Brit to jump into an early lead in Bergen.