Over 1100 of Europe’s most promising young athletes, representing 48 countries, comprise the final entries for the Rieti 2026 European Athletics U18 Championships, taking place from 16-19 July.
This will be the fifth edition of the championships, which offers an early glimpse of the rising stars of the sport.
Previous European U18 gold medallists include Olympic 800m champion Keely Hodgkinson (Győr 2018), Olympic high jump champion Yaroslava Mahuchikh (Győr 2018) and world long jump champion Mattia Furlani (Jerusalem 2022).
Rieti 2026 promises to unearth more superstars of the coming years, with 1104 athletes, 551 male and 553 female ready to descend on the Italian town.
Doualla carrying Italian hopes
For the host nation, Kelly Doualla will carry hopes of a gold medal.
The sprinter came to prominence last year when, aged 15, she won gold at the Skopje 2025 European Youth Summer Olympic Festival in a new European U18 best of 11.21, before going on to win 100m and 4x100m gold at the Tampere 2025 European Athletics U20 Championships.
She will face an intriguing challenge in the women’s 100m from Romania’s Carolina-Andreea Pungă, who tops the season’s bests with 11.36, clocked in Novo Mesto, Slovenia on Saturday (4).
Doualla’s Italian teammate Alessia Succo is another athlete well worth watching. She is the current holder of the European U18 bests over the 60m hurdles (8.05) and 100m hurdles (12.86) – the latter jointly with 2024 champion Laura Frličková of Slovakia.
She also won bronze at the Tampere 2025 European Athletics U20 Championships, aged just 16.
In the 400m hurdles, Czechia’s in-form Linda Botková is the favourite. The 16-year-old set a European U18 best in the 300m hurdles (39.35) in her home country at Olomouc last month.
Should she succeed, she will retain the title for Czechia following the victory by Nina Radová at Banska Bystrica 2024.
In the women’s 800m, Slovenian talent Živa Remic has nearly five seconds in hand over the rest of the field, based on season’s bests.
She set a new European U18 best of 2:00.73 during the indoor season and has since dipped under two minutes outdoors, clocking 1:59.64 in Pfungstadt, Germany in June.
She took silver at the Tampere 2025 European Athletics U20 Championships aged just 15 and looks set to upgrade in Rieti 2026.
In the men’s events, France’s Dylan Telo leads the entries in the 100m (10.29) and will also be targeting a medal in the 200m.
In the field, Great Britain’s Tito Odunaike leads the entries for the men’s triple jump with 16.19m. He is already the British indoor champion at senior level.
Finland’s multi-talented thrower Jere Murto is an accomplished performer with the discus (PB: 56.16m), hammer (PB: 71.00m) and javelin (PB: 80.24m). But it is the latter event he will concentrate on as the European U18 leader.
