Another Swedish pole vaulter is coming through the ranks as Sweden’s Axel Rogö followed in Armand Duplantis’ footsteps to win gold at the 2025 European Athletics U20 Championships in Tampere on Saturday (9) evening, seven years after Duplantis won world U20 gold in the very same stadium.
Tampere 2025 is being live streamed on the European Athletics website courtesy of Eurovision Sport.
Rogo, who finished just out of the medals in fourth at last year’s European Athletics U18 Championships, was only ranked 11th out of the 12 finalists based on season’s best with 5.20m but the 18-year-old overturned the formbook for a wholly unexpected but confident victory.
"It is so amazing to win here - I have been dreaming about this since last year's U18 championships. I just believed in myself and believed that I can jump higher than anyone else," said Rogo.
After equalling his season’s best with a 5.20m clearance, Rogo registered his first failure of the final at 5.30m. The Swede eschewed any further attempts at that height before seizing the initiative with a first-time 5.40m clearance to take the lead on countback from France’s Zackaria Dia who also cleared 5.40m on his first attempt.
But after recording an initial failure at 5.45m, Rogo - who was buoyed by a sizeable and fervent Swedish crowd who were gathered on the top bend for the pole vault - put the competition beyond reach with a second-time clearance at 5.45m, his second lifetime best of the final.
After running through on his first two attempts at 5.45m, Dia - who won gold at the European Youth Olympic Festival in Skopje last month and was the youngest athlete in the final at 17 - failed on his only attempt at 5.50m to confirm Rogo as champion.
Rogo becomes the first Swedish winner of this title since Duplantis won gold in Grosseto 2017 with a championship record of 5.65m. And the champion revealed he received the boost of a pre-final text message from the world record-holder.
“It is amazing to do pole vault in the Mondo era. Before the competition, he texted me: ‘go kill it.’ I think I did. I met him a couple of times and he is a great dude. His mentality in pole vault is something that inspires me and he really shows there are no limits in sports and especially pole vault. As long as you believe in yourself, anything is possible,” he said.
After a dead-heat for 100m silver last night, there was another shared bronze medal in the pole vault with Belgium’s Ylio Philtjens and Poland’s Pawel Pospiech recording identical scorecards all the way through to 5.30m.
Koscak in command after day one heptathlon
World U20 champion Jana Koscak leads the heptathlon standings by over 200 points after the first day at the European Athletics U20 Championships in Tampere on Saturday (9) evening.
The Croatian began her campaign for the title with a faltering 100m hurdles in which the 19-year-old only just managed to stay on her feet after clattering two of the hurdles but Koscak has been in faultless form since then.
After breaking the long-standing championship best of 1.92m in the high jump to capture the lead, Koscak added further lustre to her day one campaign by setting a lifetime best of 14.00m in the shot put - the best mark of the competition in an event which Koscak has sometimes struggled for consistency with - before concluding proceedings with a 25.17 clocking in the 200m.
Koscak leads the standings after four events with 3820 points, comfortably ahead of Hungary’s Sarolta Kriszt - who leads the entry-list based on season’s best performances with 6225 points - with 3611 points. The latter was the fastest across the three 200m heats in 23.77.
And reigning European U18 champion Enni Virjonen is still in medal contention. Virjonen is third overall with 3568 points after concluding her day one campaign with a 12.97m shot put and 24.32 200m.
However, one major casualty on day one was world U20 silver medallist Lucia Acklin from Switzerland who sustained an injury in the shot put before withdrawing from the 200m.
