Award centre LIVE: Men's European Athlete of the Year...

Award centre LIVE: Men’s European Athlete of the Year finalists for 2024 revealed” as Armand Duplantis and Jakob Ingebtrigtsen” already mounting serious extra pressure” on the newcomers for another ambitious repeatation” here are the full final list with performance…

The three contenders for the men’s 2024 European Athlete of the Year trophy are elite athletes who are currently competing for European countries internationally. They are Olympic gold medallists, European champions, and all-time greats in their respective sports.

The winners of the men’s and women’s European Athletes of the Year and Rising Star awards will be announced at the Golden Tracks award night which will be held in Skopje, Republic of North Macedonia on 26 October and streamed live on the European Athletics YouTube channel.

From a long-list of 10 athletes, the three finalists were decided based on a four-part voting process with a public vote, a Member Federation vote, a media vote and a European Athletics expert panel vote each accounting for one-quarter of the overall vote.

In alphabetical order, the three men’s European Athlete of the Year finalists for 2024 are:

Armand Duplantis (SWE)

European pole vault champion
World record clearances of 6.24m, 6.25m and 6.26m
Olympic pole vault champion
World indoor pole vault champion
Diamond League champion

It has been yet another spellbinding year for the Swede who continues to raise the bar metaphorically and literally in the pole vault. By his own lofty standards, the seemingly unbeatable Duplantis suddenly looked susceptible in the indoor season before a successful final attempt at 6.05m salvaged a second gold medal at the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow in March.

But as the outdoor season got underway, Duplantis sent out a fresh statement of intent, setting a world record of 6.24m at the Diamond League in Xiamen in April. He went on to break his record twice more, most gloriously at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games (6.25m) and then finally at the Diamond League in Silesia in August with 6.26m.

It all added up to an unbeaten year of 15 competitions that also included gold a third gold medal at the Roma 2024 European Athletics Championships in June. He even found time to take on Karsten Warholm over 100m at the Diamond League meeting in Zurich which he also won.

Duplantis has yet to win the European Athlete of the Year accolade outright, having shared the honour with Jakob Ingebrigtsen in 2022. The duo also shared the Rising Star award in 2018.

Jakob Ingebrigtsen (NOR)

European 1500m and 5000m champion
Olympic 5000m champion
World 3000m record of 7:17.55
European 1500m record and world lead with 3:26.73
Diamond League 1500m champion

Injury threatened to derail the prolific Norwegian’s year and kept him on the sidelines through the cross country and indoor seasons. But when he returned to action in May, it was with typical gusto and an all-out assault on glory.

In only his third competition of the year, he took a brilliant 1500m/5000m double at the Roma 2024 European Athletics Championships to become the most successful male athlete in championship history with six gold medals.

Then, in the Olympic 1500m final in Paris, he took part in one of the most talked about races in years where his rivalry with Great Britain’s Josh Kerr attracted global attention. He boldly took on the pace, but faded to fourth in the home straight as Kerr took silver behind surprise winner Cole Hocker.

But he showed incredible resilience, bouncing back to win the 5000m, his second Olympic gold following his 1500m triumph in Tokyo 2020. And after Paris, Ingebrigtsen produced one more magical moment for the sport’s fans, as he slashed more than three seconds from Daniel Komen’s near 28-year-old world record for the men’s 3000m with a staggering 7:17.55 in the Silesia Diamond League.

Ingebrigtsen, who also improved his European 1500m record to 3:26.73 in Monaco, is in contention for his third successive European Athlete of the Year award, having shared it with Duplantis in 2022 before winning it outright last year.

Miltiadis Tentoglou (GRE)

European long jump champion
Olympic long jump champion
World indoor long jump champion
World leader with 8.65m

Year-on-year, Tentoglou is building his reputation as one of the most prolific gold medallists in the sport’s history and 2024 was no different. Still only 26, the long jumper began the year as the defending Olympic, world, European, world indoor and European indoor champion.

He retained all the titles available to him this year, starting at the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow, onto the Roma 2024 European Athletics Championships and finally the Olympic Games in Paris.

In Mattia Furlani, Tentoglou has seen the emergence of a real contender to his long jump throne but the Greek superstar is far from ready to concede his place atop the discipline, which he underlined with a world lead and championship record of 8.65m on his way to a third gold medal at Roma 2024.

Is this Tentoglou’s time to be crowned men’s European Athlete of the Year at the Golden Tracks award night?