When are the European Athletics Championships 2026? Birmingham start date

THE EUROPEAN Athletics Championships are coming to Great Britain for the first time, with Birmingham taking centre stage. More than 1,500 world-class athletes from over 50 European nations will descend on the Midlands to compete for glory across seven days. The championships will take place at Alexander Stadium in Birmingham, the venue refurbished for the 2022 Commonwealth Games Credit: Getty Here is everything you need to know about competition dates, the venue, ceremony plans, and live TV coverage. When are the European Athletics Championships 2026? The European Athletics Championships 2026 officially start on Monday, August 10 and run through to Sunday, August 16. Sign up for the Sport newsletter Thank you! The seven-day event takes place at Alexander Stadium in Perry Barr, Birmingham, the venue refurbished for the 2022 Commonwealth Games. Track and field events will be staged inside the stadium, while road events like the marathons and race walking will route through the city streets and finish in Victoria Square. Unlike multi-sport events like the Olympic Games or Commonwealth Games, the European Athletics Championships is a standalone single-sport event. As a result, there is no separate, large-scale stadium opening ceremony or athlete parade held on a preceding night. Instead, the event jumps straight into competition on the morning of Monday, August 10. The opening day features morning qualifiers followed directly by evening finals, including the women’s 100m, men’s 5,000m, and the mixed 4x400m relay. Most read in Athletics Are the European Championships on TV? Sports fans in the UK can watch live coverage of the 2026 European Athletics Championships free-to-air. The BBC holds primary free-to-air broadcast rights in the UK. Main channel television coverage will air on BBC One and BBC Two, with every session available to stream live and on-demand via BBC iPlayer. Jeanette Kwakye will present the morning TV sessions, while Gabby Logan will front the prime-time evening broadcasts. Analysis and commentary will come from former elite athletes including Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill, Greg Rutherford, and Jenny Meadows. Pay-TV and streaming viewers can also watch live coverage on TNT Sports and HBO Max, alongside Eurosport’s wider European broadcast network. Birmingham 2026 is the 27th edition of the European Athletics Championships and marks the first time a British city has staged the event. The 2026 format incorporates “One-Day Deciders” for select track events, where early heats and final medal races take place on the same calendar day. This compresses the timeline for sprint disciplines, offering continuous track action across each day of the championships. Comment now