European Athletics’ website will live stream action* from this weekend’s UK Athletics Championships, which take place in Birmingham on Saturday (20) and Sunday (21).
*The stream will be geoblocked in Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Olympic 800m champion and world indoor record holder Keely Hodgkinson, world indoor 1500m champion Georgia Hunter Bell and world 200m silver medallist Amy Hunt are among the athletes set to star at the Alexander Stadium, which is set to host the Birmingham 2026 European Athletics Championships on 10-16 August.
Keely takes on one-lap stars
Hodgkinson will race over 400m, a distance she has dabbled in this year both indoors and outdoors and one in which she won European U23 bronze three years ago in Espoo, Finland.
She will face formidable opposition in 2025 world indoor champion Amber Anning and Yemi Mary John, who beat Hodgkinson to gold at Espoo 2023.
Hunter Bell, who has concentrated largely on the 1500m this year, will race in the 800m in Birmingham, a distance in which she is no slouch, having won world silver last year.
Hunt, who recently broke 11 seconds for the first time in the 100m, is set for an exciting battle in the sprints with European 100m champion and former world 200m champion Dina Asher-Smith.
Explosive men's 100m expected
Elsewhere, the men’s 100m could produce an explosive battle between European indoor 60m champion Jeremiah Azu, European bronze medallist Romell Glave, 2023 world bronze medallist Zharnel Hughes and wildcard Louis Hinchliffe, who reached the semi-finals at the Paris Olympics, but has yet to race outside the USA this season.
Despite the late withdrawal of the in-form Max Burgin, the men's 800m is still a high-quality affair with 2023 world bronze medallist Ben Pattison and 2022 world 1500m champion Jake Wightman both entered.
The men’s 400m should also be worth watching, featuring Olympic silver medallist Matthew Hudson-Smith, 2024 Diamond League Final winner Charlie Dobson and Sam Reardon, winner at the Madrid 2025 European Athletics Team Championships 1st Division.
Other names to look out for include two-time European champion Laura Muir (women’s 1500m), European U23 champion Emily Newnham (women’s 400m hurdles) and world indoor fourth-placer Scott Lincoln (men's shot put).