Glave Takes European 100m Gold as Britain Sweep to One-Two in Birmingham
Romell Glave won the men's 100m gold at the 2026 European Athletics Championships in Birmingham, clocking 10.09 seconds to lead a British one-two ahead of silver medallist Jeremiah Azu, who ran 10.16. Germany's Owen Ansah took bronze in 10.19. The final, on 11 August, delivered Britain's third European championship gold-and-silver sweep in the event, after Darren Campbell and Dwain Chambers in 1998 and Zharnel Hughes and Reece Prescod in 2018. The Guardian
For Glave, the gold is the culmination of a nine-year climb. Born in Jamaica, he moved to London at 15 to join his family and pursue athletics. A year later, in 2017, he was the world's fastest teenager with a 10.21 clocking as a 17-year-old. He took European bronze over 100m in 2024. This June he broke ten seconds for the first time under legal wind conditions, winning the UK Championships in 9.98 — a barrier that separates the merely fast from the genuinely elite. European Athletics
Coached by Michael Afilaka and known for racing in sunglasses, Glave has spent the season building a résumé that pointed toward this night. He beat Azu over 60m in Stockholm in January, ran a wind-assisted 9.88 in Savona in May, and finished second behind Marcell Jacobs at a gaspingly fast meeting in Eisenstadt in July, where Jacobs ran a wind-aided 9.67 — the third-fastest 100m ever recorded under any conditions. European Athletics
Jacobs, Italy's two-time European 100m champion, was the story within the story in Birmingham. He pulled up injured mid-race and crossed the line in 12.26 seconds. BBC Sport The sight of the Olympic champion limping through the finish cast a shadow over an otherwise celebratory night for British sprinting, and leaves questions about the 31-year-old's immediate future.
The Birmingham crowd had more to cheer beyond the men's sprint. Nadine Visser of the Netherlands won her first major outdoor title, taking the women's 100m hurdles by one thousandth of a second over Poland's Pia Skrzyszowska — a margin invisible to the naked eye, settled only by the photo finish camera. European Athletics
Italy's Nadia Battocletti, already one of the continent's most versatile distance runners, won the women's 5,000m in 15:37.84, with Spain's Marta García claiming silver. The Guardian And Amy Hunt took her first major gold medal in the women's 100m, adding another layer of home celebration. BBC Sport
What makes Glave's victory resonate is the patience behind it. He was fast at 17, a junior prodigy with Jamaican sprinting in his blood and a British system willing to develop him. The years in between — the bronze in 2024, the sub-10 breakthrough this summer, the close losses to Jacobs — were not detours but the run-up. In Birmingham, on the biggest stage of his career, the landing was clean.
