Whether it is indoors or outdoors, Mark English has a phenomenal record of having won a medal in every European Athletics Championships final he has contested.
His medal haul includes bronze medals at both the 2014 and 2022 European Athletics Championships along with one silver and two bronze medals from the European Athletics Indoor Championships.
European record - Wilson Kipketer (DEN) 1:41.11
European lead - Mark English (IRL) 1:42.97
Championship record - Olaf Beyer (GDR/GER) 1:43.84
Roma 2024 medallists
Gabriel Tual (FRA) 1:44.87
Mohamed Attaoui (ESP) 1:45.20
Catalin Tecuceanu (ITA) 1:45.40
Five to watch
- Mark English (IRL)
- Gabriel Tual (FRA)
- Max Burgin (GBR)
- Mohamed Attaoui (ESP)
- Francesco Pernici (ITA)
However, a gold medal is conspicuously absent from English’s sizeable medal collection but at the age of 33, the stalwart of Irish athletics is running faster than ever. He leads the 2026 European list with a lifetime best of 1:42.97 from finishing second in the London Diamond League, his first ever sub-1:43 clocking.
In a wide open and difficult to predict race, one of English’s main rivals will be the reigning European champion and two-time Olympic finalist Gabriel Tual from France who is back in form after a below-par 2025 season.
Incidentally, Tual took a victory in the Rome Diamond League in early June in a season’s best of 1:43.66 on the same track he was crowned European champion two years ago. However, he was beaten at the French Championships by Louey Ouerrat - 1:44.91 to 1:45.07.
If Max Burgin can rediscover the form he displayed at the start of the year, he will also be in with a very good chance of becoming the first British winner of this title since Tom McKean in Split in 1990.
Burgin made an excellent season’s debut when he defeated a world class field including world and Olympic champion Emmanuel Wanyonyi and Tual in the Rabat Diamond League with a 1:42.98 clocking but he surprisingly exited in the semifinal stage of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow only last week.
Burgin forms one part of a strong British triumvirate which also features 2023 world bronze medallist Ben Pattison and Alex Botterill.
In total, 13 Europeans have broken the 1:44-barrier this year. That list also includes Francesco Pernici, who recently broke the 53-year-old Italian record with 1:43.60, world and European indoor silver medallist Eliott Crestan from Belgium with 1:43.83 and last year’s surprise world fourth-placer Cian McPhillips from Ireland.
McPhillips improved by over two seconds over the course of the rounds in Tokyo last year, ultimately lowering the Irish record to 1:42.15 in the final. His season’s best stands at 1:43.97.
Other medal contenders include Spaniards David Barroso and 2024 silver medallist Mohamed Attaoui and the rapidly improving Norwegian Tobias Grønstad who has clocked 1:43.61 this year.
The 800m championship record is one of the enduring marks on the books. The mark still belongs to East Germany's Olaf Beyer who clocked 1:43.84 to win the 1978 European Athletics Championships in Prague ahead of Steve Ovett and Sebastian Coe.