On the second day of the Rieti 2026 European Athletics U18 Championships the field event qualifications continued to give a sneak peak of what we can expect in the finals from the talented fields.
The women’s javelin continued to prove itself as one of the most unpredictable events of the championships, with three athletes throwing PBs to hit the automatic qualifying mark of 52.00m.
European U18 leader, Simanur Bilgili of Türkiye, was the only athlete to secure automatic qualification in the first group as she threw 52.42m on her second attempt after a now throw in round one.
But in the second group Latvia’s Eliza Ligere, Great Britain’s Lucy Bull, and Croatia’s Ema Trogrlic all threw a PB to secure their spot in the final, throwing 55.26m 54.98m and 52.93m respectively.
While the women’s long jump saw three athletes hit the automatic qualifying mark, in Czechia’s Kristyna Zahorova, Germany’s Teresie Hess, and Latvia’s Emilija Brauna.
Hess jumped 6.19m to also set a new PB while Brauna equalled her PB with 6.10m.
Zahorova boasts the best PB of the field, 6.39m but with the top four ranked athletes all progressing through to the final, it will be a close battle for the podium.
In a similar fashion to the men’s high jump qualifying, none of the women in the high jump needed to jump the automatic qualifying mark, of 1.77m to make the final.
Instead, just 1.71m was enough to qualify, with five athletes doing so with a clean sheet having not knocked off the bar once.
One of those athletes Is European U18 leader, Karina Nizynska, who cleared 1.85m earlier this year as well as three more clearances of 1.80m or higher.
In the men’s long jump, France’s Maidis Gorrillot set a European U18 lead with 7.78m on his first attempt to qualify for the final.
Former European U18 leader, Hungary’s Botond Horvath, needed all three jumps to pass the automatic qualifying mark of 7.35m.
Among the rest of the field there were six PBs broken, including Finland’s Pyry Heiskanen who jumped 7.58m for a U18 national record.
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