British crowd favourites Jazmin Sawyers and Georgia Hunter Bell both qualified for their respective finals on Saturday (15) at the Birmingham 2026 European Athletics Championships.
In summary
- Sawyers, de Sousa, Iapichino qualify with impressive single leaps in long jump
- Mihambo faces elimination before supreme final effort
- Hunter Bell and Guillemot through in 1500m as Muir exits
Sawyers, who recently won gold at the Commonwealth Games and claimed European indoor gold in 2023, stretched out to a wind-assisted 6.90m (2.5m/s) with her first attempt in the women’s long jump to clinch a place in Sunday’s final.
Defending champion Malaika Mihambo had a roller-coaster qualification. The German Olympic and world gold medallist was sweating on qualification after an opener of 6.37m (2.5m/s) and a foul left her staring at elimination with one jump remaining.
But she showed her championship pedigree, unleashing a wind-assisted final effort of 7.10m (3.3m/s) to head the qualifiers.
World indoor champion Agate de Sousa of Portugal landed a season’s best of 7.00m (1.7m/s) with her only attempt to progress.
European indoor champion Larissa Iapichino of Italy was also impressive, logging 6.94m (2.2m/s) with her first jump to qualify.
In the women’s 1500m heats, world indoor champion Hunter Bell bossed the first heat, leading all the way to win in 4:08.97. She will be joined in Sunday’s final by France’s European indoor champion Agathe Guillemot, who was content to place third in the second heat in 4:08.17.
But there was disappointment for Great Britain’s 2018 and 2022 champion Laura Muir, who was eliminated in the second heat after placing eighth in 4:09.66.