Bol, Duplantis Named Europe’s Top Athletes

Europe’s elite track stars were honoured last Saturday at the 2025 Golden Tracks held in Batumi, Georgia. The sprinter and hurdler from the Netherlands and Sweden’s pole vaulting great joined Great Britain’s Mo Farah in the honour of having received the award three times during their career.

Femke Bol won the coveted accolade in 2022 and 2023, while world-record holder Armand Duplantis shared the men’s award with Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen in 2022 before winning the award solo in 2024.

“Both Femke and Armand have redefined their events and it was a privilege to watch both of them win gold in their respective events at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo. To be crowned European Athlete of the Year once is a remarkable achievement but to win this award three times is a truly historic feat,” said European Athletics President Dobromir Karamarinov.

Both athletes showed outstanding performances this season. While Bol announced earlier this year that she was not going to compete in individual events during the 2025 indoor season, but only in relay, she defended her 400-metre hurdles world title at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo in September, setting a championship record of 51.54 seconds. After this feat, the Dutch track star announced she would be switching to the 800m ahead of the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028.

Duplantis maintained his remarkable run in the pole vault, clearing 6.30 metres in Tokyo on 15 September to set his fourth world record of the year, and the 14th of his career, while securing a third world title. He also made a career move in a different direction, releasing his first pop single, ‘Bop’ in February, followed by ‘4L’ in June.

A new generation of track stars were also recognised, and Switzerland’s Audrey Werro and Poland’s Hubert Tro?cianka were crowned 2025 Women’s and Men’s Rising Stars.

Werro won 800m gold at the European Athletics U23 Championships with a championship record of 1:57.42. The Swiss went on to win the Diamond League title in Zürich in a national record of 1:55.91 before finishing sixth in a highly competitive 800m at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo.

Tro?cianka was one of the breakthrough performers at the European Athletics U20 Championships in Tampere, where he won the decathlon title with a world U20 record of 8514 points, improving the mark of 8435 points set by Germany’s Niklas Kaul, the 2019 men’s Rising Star at the 2017 European Athletics U20 Championships.

A special Lifetime Achievement Award was also presented by Karamarinov to Armenia’s Robert Emmiyan, whose European long jump record of 8.86m has endured on the books since 1987. Emmiyan dominated the long jump on the European stage in the mid-1980s, winning gold at the 1986 European Athletics Championships in Stuttgart as well as European indoor titles in 1986 and 1987. Emmiyan also won silver behind Carl Lewis at the 1987 World Athletics Championships in Rome.

In recent years, Emmiyan has left his mark as a coach and administrator. He has been the President of the Armenian Athletic Federation since 2010 and the 60-year-old, who is based in Paris, has coached many of France’s leading long jumpers in recent times, including 2014 European champion Eloyse Lesueur, 2022 European bronze medallist Jules Pommery, and 2025 European U23 champion Erwan Konate.

The first of the annual European Athletics Coaching Awards were presented on-stage in Batumi to Georgian coaches Marina Kotrikadze and Zigmund Zilbershtein. A total of 66 coaches representing 32 Member Federations will receive the award this year, including all coaches of individual gold medallists from the 2025 European Athletics Indoor Championships in Apeldoorn.

And the first-ever Referees of the Year were also honoured, a new accolade recognising and celebrating the role and achievements of the sport’s best officials. The inaugural winners of this award were Anna Palmerius and Niels van der Aar.
— insidethegames

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