The Berlin 2018 European Athletics Championships in Berlin will be long remembered for being the starting point in the careers of two of the defining athletes of the century.
At 18, Armand Duplantis vaulted over 6.05m to begin his reign in the pole vault. But not to be undone, a 17-year-old Jakob Ingebrigtsen swept the 1500m and 5000m titles, a double that had never been achieved in the history of the championships.
In the countdown to Birmingham 2026 (10–16 August), we look back at 26 unforgettable moments from European Athletics Championships history, including Ingebrigtsen’s incredible double in Berlin .
The background
At 17, Jakob Ingebrigtsen already had a disproportionately high profile in Norway. He was featured heavily on the fly-on-the-wall television series Team Ingebrigtsen which was shown on primetime Norwegian television, documenting the on-track and off-track exploits of his family, including his older brothers Henrik and Filip.
Henrik and Filip had won the 2012 and 2016 European 1500m finals and another chapter of Ingebrigtsen dominance was widely anticipated at the 2018 European Athletics Championships in Berlin where Jakob had qualified for the team alongside his older brothers.
“Even when I won in 2012, everyone was saying it was about Jakob at that point,” recalled Henrik, reflecting on the family’s ascendancy in the 2010s.
However, it was still Filip who was the prohibitive favourite having recently lowered the Norwegian record to 3:30.01. Anyone who had followed Jakob’s progress could not have been unaware of his prodigious potential but at the age of 17, surely he would only play a supporting role on his European Athletics Championships debut in Berlin?
What happened?
All three Ingebrigtsens made it through to the 1500m final and there was speculation the brothers could even achieve the unprecedented feat of a sweep of the podium.
A clean sweep didn’t quite happen as Henrik and Filip - the latter suffering with a rib injury sustained in an awkward fall in the heats - were run out of proceedings in the last 200 metres as their precocious brother became the youngest ever male gold medallist in European Athletics Championships.
The Ingebrigtsens moved through the field with military precision on the second lap with Jakob taking up the lead ahead of his brothers with just under 800 metres remaining. Was Jakob acting as a domestique for his older brothers or was this Jakob running at his own volition?
In what would become his tactical hallmark, Jakob wound the pace up unrelentingly in the last two laps, only faltering in the last 40 metres when the fast-finishing pair of Poland’s Marcin Lewandowski and Great Britain’s Jake Wightman began to bear down on the teenager.
Jakob glanced around anxiously on floundering legs as his lead began to diminish, willing on the finish-line.
Fortunately, the finish-line arrived just in time for the 17-year-old Jakob who held on for a seismic victory, winning by just 0.04 over Lewandowski. “I was wondering if I missed a lap or something,” said the bemused champion in the immediate aftermath.
He added: “I had some tactics to go to the front with two laps to go. Obviously I was expecting someone to be strong on the last lap and come up from behind but I felt very good coming into the last 100 metres.”
And the same tactics worked perfectly in the 5000m final the following evening. Showing the race craft and poise of a seasoned veteran, Jakob splintered the field with yet another long run for home, coming down the home straight with Henrik - whom he shared a mid-race high-five with - in distant pursuit to win his second title of the championships, and with relative ease.
“This was one of my dreams to take gold at the Europeans. Doing this at 17 motivates me to keep on working hard in the next couple of years and becoming a much better runner,” commented Ingebrigtsen.
The aftermath
Jakob would indeed become “a much better runner” in the years to run although that assessment would be to do a huge disservice to his accomplishments.
Just three years after winning double gold in Berlin, Ingebrigtsen was crowned Olympic 1500m champion at the age of 20, setting a since-improved European and Olympic record of 3:28.32 to become the second youngest winner in Olympic history.
But Ingebrigtsen’s career hasn’t been without its downs both on and away from the track.
The Norwegian suffered chastening defeats in the 1500m at the World Athletics Championships in both 2022 and 2023 and was run out of the medals altogether at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris where he served as a de facto pacemaker before fading to fourth in one of the greatest 1500m races in championship history..
But on each occasion Ingebrigtsen bounced back to win the 5000m in three successive global championships, including in Paris where he sauntered away in the last 600 metres, winning his second Olympic title by more than one second in what is widely considered to be his secondary event.
And at the European Athletics Championships, Ingebrigtsen has continued to make history. He defended his 1500/5000m titles in 2022 and 2024, becoming the first man in European Athletics Championships history to win six gold medals with his victory in the 1500m in Rome at the age of just 23.
But Ingebrigtsen finds himself in a race against time to get fit for the 2026 European Athletics Championships in Birmingham. The 25-year-old underwent surgery on his Achilles tendon in February, the same injury which blighted his outdoor season in 2025, with no return date set at the time of writing.
“The last couple of months have been quite difficult with some good days and some bad days and ultimately leading to this decision, which was 100% necessary for me to be healthy again,” said Ingebrigtsen on the decision to face the doctor’s knife.
Can Ingebrigtsen get back into form in time to add to his record gold medal haul or will a new champion be crowned in the 1500m and 5000m in August?