Alessia Succo eased her way into the women’s 100m hurdles final with an untroubled victory in the semifinals at the Rieti 2026 European Athletics U18 Championships on Sunday (19).
The Italian won the third semifinal in 13.06 (-1.3m/s), looking relaxed and confident. The qualifiers for Sunday evening’s final were led by Germany’s Delisha Benelisa Domingos, who ran a national U18 best of 13.04 (-0.5m/s) to win the first semifinal.
Slovakia’s Nina Hejcíková won the second semifinal in 13.08 (+0.9m/s) ahead of heptathlon gold medallist Alisa Launonen (13.24), who is seeking her second medal of the championships.
One day after setting a European U18 best of 12.96 in the men’s 110m hurdles, the Netherlands’ Eljahro Philipsen returned for the semifinals.
The Dutch athlete ran a controlled race to win the first semifinal in 13.07 (+1.6m/s). The second semifinal was won by Spain’s Nicolás Ceballos in 13.46 (-1.0m/s), while Türkiye’s Yunus Emre Civelek won the third semifinal in 13.27 (-0.6m/s). The final will take place on Sunday evening.
Czechia sets two world U18 leads in relay heats
Czechia headed the qualifiers for both of Sunday evening’s 1000m sprint medley finals, running world U18-leading times in both the men’s and women’s events.
They benefited from the disqualification of Great Britain, whose first changeover was outside of the takeover zone in the men’s event.
They had initially finished second to the British quartet in heat one but were promoted to first in 1:52.11, which was also a national U18 best.
Spain, who included 100m silver medallist Francisco de Las Heras and 200m bronze medallist Iker Piñeira, were impressive winners of heat three in a national U18 best of 1:52.91. Hosts Italy fumbled the baton on the last exchange but still won heat two in 1:54.34 to progress safely.
In the women’s competition, Czechia ran a world U18-leading time of 2:07.62 in the first heat. They will be joined in the final by Spain, who set a new national U18 best of 2:08.19 in winning the second heat.
Also through are Greece, whose team included individual 400m champion Eleni Iakovaki in their quartet as they won heat three in a national U18 best of 2:08.33.
Italy fielded 100m champion Kelly Doualla in their team and they also qualified from the third semifinal, just 0.22 behind Greece.
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