Prince Edward and Duchess Sophie at European Athletics Championships as Son James Prepares for University

Prince Edward and Duchess Sophie turned out in matching light blue on the fourth day of the 2026 European Athletics Championships in Birmingham, the same week their youngest child received his A-level results and his university place was confirmed.

The championships, held at Alexander Stadium on Walsall Road, run from 10 to 16 August. The Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh's attendance was announced on the Duchess's official Instagram account on 13 August (Hello!). The couple watched the fourth day's events together in the stands.

Their son, James, Earl of Wessex — the couple's youngest child, who holds his father's secondary title — is 18 and received his A-level results on Thursday. Buckingham Palace confirmed that James will go straight to university without taking a gap year, enrolling at the Royal Agricultural University to study Rural Land & Property Management (Hello!). The Royal Agricultural University, based in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, specialises in land-based and agricultural subjects.

The timing put the couple's public and family diaries in tension. On the day James received his results, Prince Edward and Duchess Sophie faced a scheduling clash, according to an earlier report on 7 August (Hello!). The nature of the clash was not specified, but the family was not reported to have been together publicly that day.

James's older sister, Lady Louise Windsor, followed the same no-gap-year path. Now 22, she went straight to the University of St Andrews in Scotland after receiving her A-level results in August 2022 (Hello!). Lady Louise has since graduated and is now taking a gap year after completing her degree — the reverse of the conventional order. Before St Andrews, she had taken AS-Levels in English, History, Politics and Drama (Express).

The Birmingham athletics appearance is one of several sporting engagements for the couple this summer. Earlier in August, Prince Edward and Duchess Sophie attended the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, where they crossed paths with the Prince and Princess of Wales and two of their children. Princess Charlotte, the Waleses' ten-year-old daughter, greeted Duchess Sophie with a hug and a kiss — a moment caught by cameras and widely shared (Hello!).

Duchess Sophie has also taken on a new patronage. She was named royal patron of the Armed Forces Para-Snowsport Team, the charity that supports wounded, injured and sick military personnel and veterans through adaptive snowsport. To mark the role, she visited the Snow Centre in Hemel Hempstead, where she watched athletes train and took part in skiing and laser rifle target practice herself (Hello!).

For the Edinburghs, the summer has paired the ceremonial with the domestic: a stadium in Birmingham, a results day at home, and a son packing for Cirencester.