The European Athletics Championships in 2026 gets off to a flying start with 100m finals in the first two days.

The European Athletics Championships will start with a bang next August with both 100m finals in the opening two days.

Monday evening on August 10 will see medals decided for the women’s 100m, whereas Tuesday August 11 features the men’s 100m.

There will be plenty of British interest, too, in the race to be crowned the sprint king and queen of Europe.

Dina Asher-Smith is the reigning European women’s 100m champion and is likely to be defending her title.

Some of her biggest rivals, though, could also be team-mates with Amy Hunt and Daryll Neita being in such great form in recent years. Hunt won world 200m silver in 2025 whereas Neita came within inches of winning the European 200m title in Rome two years ago, losing out by just one hundredth of a second to Mujinga Kambundji of Switzerland.

Kambundji is likely to be in the mix in Birmingham 2026, too. Look out as well for the European 100m silver and bronze medallists from 2024 – Ewa Swoboda of Poland and Zaynab Dosso of Italy.

Gina Lückenkemper of Germany won the European title on home soil in Munich in 2022 and remains a force to be reckoned with.

Other possible contenders include Patrizia Van der Weken of Luxembourg. Birmingham 2026 will probably come too soon for Kelly Doualla, however, as she will still only be 16 years old – but the Italian youngster stormed to European under-20 gold this year and looks destined for greatness.

At the European Championships in Rome in 2026, Italians dominated on home soil with Marcel Jacobs winning gold from team-mate Chituru Ali and Britain’s Romell Glave was third.

Home advantage does help so competing in Birmingham will no doubt give a boost to the British sprinters led by UK record-holder Zharnel Hughes.

Hughes won the European 100m title in 2018 and 200m gold in 2022. Depending on who qualifies for the team, he could be joined by athletes such as Glave, Jeremiah Azu, Louie Hinchliffe and Eugene Amo-Dadzie.

Azu won European and world indoor 60m titles in 2025 whereas Amo-Dadzie won the 100m at the European Team Championships and clocked a late-season 9.87 to go equal second on the UK all-time rankings.

Possible rivals include Italians Jacobs and Ali, plus Elvis Afrifa of the Netherlands, Henrik Larsson of Sweden and Owen Ansah of Germany.

READ MORE: Big medal energy – Euro athletes poised for Birmingham

The women’s 100m heats are in the morning of Monday August 10 with the semi-finals at 8.10pm and final 9.50pm.

The men’s 100m heats are on the morning of Tuesday August 11 with the semi-finals at 8.30pm and final 9.45pm.