European Championships (multi-sport event)

European Championships Management, co-founded by Paul Bristow and Marc Joerg, developed the event concept, and manages and implements the European Championships on behalf of the participating Federations.[2] The 2018 European Athletics Championships were held in Berlin, while Glasgow hosted the Aquatics, Cycling, Gymnastics, Rowing and Triathlon along with a new European Golf Team Championships. The championships were being staged under one new brand with the 'Mark of a Champion', a star-like logo.[3][4][5]

The second edition saw aquatics and golf remove themselves from the programme, while canoe sprint and paracanoe, sports climbing, beach volleyball, table tennis and rowing joined the event.

At the end of the second edition, European Athletic Association indicated that athletics would leave the programme for 2026 and, as with aquatics in 2022, would hold its championships on the same dates but under its own branding.

The European Broadcasting Union is a key partner in the event, broadcasting across Europe's free to air channels via its Eurovision Network, with an estimated audience of 1.03 billion. It is also being broadcast across radio and multiple digital platforms.[6]

This competition is not related to the European Games organised by the European Olympic Committees in the 'Olympic tradition'.

The European governing bodies for athletics, aquatics, cycling, golf, gymnastics, rowing and triathlon, co-ordinated their individual continental championships as part of the first edition[7][8][9] between 2 and 12 August 2018, hosted by the cities of Berlin (already chosen as the host for the 2018 European Athletics Championships[10]) and Glasgow (already chosen as the host for the 2018 European Aquatics Championships,[11] and which now also hosted the events of the other sports).[12][13]

The initial participating continental governing bodies, and championships, are:

• European Athletics organising the 2018 European Athletics Championships in Berlin, Germany
• Ligue Européenne de Natation organising the 2018 European Aquatics Championships,
• Union Européenne de Cyclisme organising the 2018 European Cycling Championships, bringing together the individual Track, Road, Mountain Biking and BMX championships of the continent,
• FISA organising the 2018 European Rowing Championships,
• European Triathlon Union organising the European Triathlon Championships, and
• European Union of Gymnastics organising the 2018 European Artistic Gymnastics Championships, all in Glasgow, Scotland
• European Tour and Ladies European Tour organising the inaugural European Golf Team Championships, in Gleneagles, Scotland.

The European Broadcasting Union (EBU),[14] the umbrella body for the continent’s free-to-air channels, was the broadcast partner for the combined championships, which were expected to generate more than 2700 hours of programming. Athletics alone, expects a 20% rise in television viewing figures compared to a traditional single-sport European Athletics Championships.[15]

All of Europe’s major free-to-air broadcasters will televise the European Championships in 2018.[16][17] The European Broadcasting Union, which holds the broadcast rights on all platforms, has confirmed coverage across the top five markets, BBC in the United Kingdom, ARD/ZDF in Germany, France Televisions in France, RAI in Italy and TVE in Spain. Other EBU members already signed up include VRT (Belgium), HRT (Croatia), DR (Denmark), YLE (Finland), RTÉ (Ireland), NOS (Netherlands), NRK (Norway), TVP (Poland), SRG SSR (Switzerland) and SVT/TV4 (Sweden). The level of coverage is also enhanced by a deal with Eurosport. In total, over 40 EBU members have signed agreements as of April 2018. Discussions are ongoing with broadcasters in the remaining territories in Europe, plus other global territories like China, Japan and USA.[18]

Glasgow 2018 has five Official partners (People Make Glasgow, Scottish Government, Strathmore Water, Spar & Eurovision) and Berlin 2018 has six Official partners (Spar, Le Gruyère, Nike, Toyo Tires, Generali & Eurovision) with another tier of Official supporters across the two host cities. Overall over 56 companies have been signed up to support the inaugural event.[19][20]

To be staged between 2 and 12 August 2018, around 1,500 athletes will compete at the European Athletics Championships in Berlin, whilst at the same time more than 3,000 will take part in the other championships in Glasgow. Each European Championship will be organised by their respective federation and host city.

On 1 August 2018, at the Opening Party in Glasgow, a new European Championship Trophy was unveiled, to be awarded to the nation achieving the most gold medals across all seven sports during the Championships. It was presented by Katherine Grainger, Emma Fredh and Angelina Melnikova on behalf of the seven European federations involved in the event.[21]

The second edition of the European Championships takes place in Munich, Germany, in the summer of 2022.

European Athletics, Ligue Européenne de Natation, Union Européenne de Cyclisme, FISA and the European Triathlon Union agreed in 2015 to organise their individual championships as part of the European Championships.[32][33] The individual federations and the host cities will organise the individual championships with a co-ordinated timetable and a unifying common brand. The championships that will be included are the European Athletics Championships, the European Aquatics Championships, the European Road Championships, the European Track Championships, the European Rowing Championships, and the European Triathlon Championships as well as the European Gymnastics Championships and the new European Golf Team Championships. Both gymnastics and golf formally joined the new event on 23 October 2015.[34][35]

In the lead up to the announcement of the programme for the second edition of the combined European Championships, both the European Tour and LEN announced that their respective sports would not be part of the event; the European Team Golf Championship was suspended after one edition, while the 2022 European Aquatics Championships was moved to Rome, Italy. On June 18, 2020, Munich 2022 announced the final sports programme of nine sports: Athletics, Cycling, Gymnastics, Rowing, Triathlon returned, while the four new sports of Beach Volleyball, Canoe Sprint, Sports Climbing and Table Tennis were added.[36] The European Aquatics Championships will, however, be held over the same dates as the combined championships.

The European Championships Trophy, one of the unifying elements of the multi-sport event, is awarded to the nation that finishes top of the overall medal table featuring all participating sports.

Year	Host cities	Host Countries	Medal Events	Dates	European Championships Trophy Medal Table
					Winner	Second	Third
2018	Glasgow Berlin	United Kingdom  Germany	187	2–12 August	Russia	Great Britain	Italy
2022	Munich	Germany	176	11–21 August	Germany	Great Britain	Italy
2026	TBA	TBA	TBA	30 July – 9 August

Medal Table after 2022 European Championship

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	Great Britain (GBR)	50	45	39	134
2	Germany (GER)	39	37	37	113
3	Russia (RUS)	31	19	16	66
4	Italy (ITA)	29	35	47	111
5	France (FRA)	24	31	37	92
6	Netherlands (NED)	24	22	25	71
7	Hungary (HUN)	18	11	9	38
8	Poland (POL)	17	22	21	60
9	Ukraine (UKR)	13	21	14	48
10	Spain (ESP)	12	17	22	51
11	Switzerland (SUI)	11	9	13	33
12	Romania (ROU)	11	6	8	25
13	Greece (GRE)	10	7	2	19
14	Norway (NOR)	10	3	4	17
15	Belgium (BEL)	9	8	12	29
16	Sweden (SWE)	9	5	6	20
17	Portugal (POR)	6	4	2	12
18	Croatia (CRO)	5	2	3	10
19	Austria (AUT)	4	3	5	12
20	Belarus (BLR)	4	2	3	9
21	Czech Republic (CZE)	3	7	4	14
22	Lithuania (LTU)	3	6	5	14
23	Slovenia (SLO)	3	6	3	12
24	Israel (ISR)	3	2	3	8
25	Denmark (DEN)	2	7	5	14
	Turkey (TUR)	2	7	5	14
27	Ireland (IRL)	2	3	3	8
28	Finland (FIN)	2	1	3	6
–	Authorised Neutral Athletes (ANA)[1]	1	3	2	6
29	Serbia (SRB)	1	2	1	4
30	Armenia (ARM)	1	1	1	3
31	Iceland (ISL)	1	1	0	2
	Latvia (LAT)	1	1	0	2
33	Albania (ALB)	1	0	0	1
	Cyprus (CYP)	1	0	0	1
35	Slovakia (SVK)	0	2	1	3
36	Bulgaria (BUL)	0	1	1	2
37	Azerbaijan (AZE)	0	1	0	1
	Moldova (MDA)	0	1	0	1
	Montenegro (MNE)	0	1	0	1
40	Estonia (EST)	0	0	2	2
41	Luxembourg (LUX)	0	0	1	1
Totals (41 entries)		363	362	365	1090

Notes

^[1] Not included in the official medal table.

• European Championship

• Official website
• "European Athletics Championships to revert to stand-alone model after Munich 2022". insidethegames.biz. 20 June 2022.