Your Guide to the Marathons at the 2026 European Championships in Birmingham

The 2026 European Athletics Championships save two of their biggest races for last. On Sunday, August 16, the men’s and women’s marathons close the meet on the streets of Birmingham, the first time a British city has hosted the championships, with the racing playing out on a downtown loop that spectators can line for free. The women go first at 7:30 a.m. BST, the men follow at 8:10 a.m., and by late morning Europe will have two new champions. Below is everything worth knowing before the gun: the course, how to watch, the athletes to follow, and the complete start lists ranked by personal best.

The Race: Eight Laps Through the City

Instead of a point-to-point route, both marathons run as eight laps of a five-kilometer (3.1-mile) city-center circuit, so the field passes the same landmarks over and over. The loop takes in Broad Street, Colmore Row, Church Street and the finish area at Victoria Square, and because it is compact and closed to traffic, fans can watch the leaders come past several times without moving. The road races are free to attend, no ticket required, which makes the marathon one of the most accessible days of the whole championships.

The times to beat give a sense of the level. On the men’s side, the European record is Bashir Abdi’s 2:03:36, and the championship record is Koen Naert’s 2:09:51. For the women, Sifan Hassan holds the European record at 2:13:44 in a mixed-sex race and 2:19:00 in a women-only race, while the championship record is Christelle Daunay’s 2:25:14. Championship marathons, run in the heat of August without pacers and with medals rather than fast times on the line, rarely chase those marks, but they set the bar for the athletes lining up.

How to Watch

In the United Kingdom, the championships are broadcast free to air by the BBC across BBC One, BBC Two and BBC iPlayer, with radio coverage on BBC Radio 5 Live. Daily coverage runs across the week from August 10 to 16, and the marathon action on the final Sunday falls inside that window, alongside the free roadside viewing in the city center.

Across much of the rest of Europe, the championships are carried by Warner Bros. Discovery on its platforms, including Eurosport, discovery+ and TNT Sports, which recently handled coverage of the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games. For the exact channel and stream in your country, the European Athletics event pages are the best reference. All start times are British Summer Time and, as ever, subject to change.

The Men’s Race: Can Petros Finally Get His Gold

Germany’s Amanal Petros is the man to beat, and the one with the most to prove. His personal best of 2:04:03 trails only Abdi among European marathoners, yet a major individual title keeps slipping through his fingers. At the 2025 World Championships in Tokyo he was edged for gold by Tanzania’s Alphonce Simbu by three-hundredths of a second, the closest finish the event has ever produced. His 2026 reads quietly, a single 2:08:31, but the number flatters to deceive: he ran it at the London Marathon after gambling on a 61:16 first half in pursuit of the European record, then shutting it down once the pace was gone. His 2:04:03 runner-up run in Valencia last December is the truer form line.

The German threat runs three deep. Richard Ringer, now 37, is the defending champion from Munich, where he tore past a cluster of rivals inside the final kilometer, and he opened 2026 with a personal best of 2:04:47 for eighth at Boston. Samuel Fitwi has been quicker still, running 2:04:45 for second at Hamburg to own the fastest season’s best of anyone in the field. The only other men to break 2:06 this year are France’s Emmanuel Roudolff, a 2:05:58 performer from Paris, and Turkey’s Kaan Kigen Özbilen, who at 40 once held the European record and clocked 2:05:59. Israel, the 2022 team champions, bring back Munich medalists Maru Teferi and Gashau Ayale, while Italy turn to Pietro Riva after Yemaneberhan Crippa chose the 10,000m and Iliass Aouani was ruled out injured.

Home hopes rest on Mahamed Mahamed, whose 2:06:14 at London in April moved him ahead of every British marathoner in history except Mo Farah and put him among the quicker entrants on season’s best. Britain has not medaled in this race since Ian Thompson won it in Rome back in 1974.

The Women’s Race: Vainio Looks For a Generational Gold For Finland

Finland has waited a generation for a woman to win a European road title, and Alisa Vainio is its best chance in years. She earned a place on Finland’s Olympic marathon team back in 2016 at just 18, too young to actually start the race, and made good on that early billing at the 2025 World Championships, placing fifth in punishing Tokyo heat as the leading European finisher. She has since rewritten the national record more than once, most notably with the 2:20:39 she ran to win Seville in February, a mark no one else in this field has bettered by more than 90 seconds.

The depth behind her is mostly German and Spanish. Germany defend their team title with Fabienne Königstein, a 2:22:17 runner from Berlin, and the versatile Laura Hottenrott. Spain may have the strongest unit of all, with every one of their five entrants under 2:25: Laura Luengo heads them at 2:22:31, alongside Fatima Azzahraa Ouhaddou Nafie, who got up from a fall to win last year’s European Running Championships marathon in Leuven. Championships seldom follow the rankings, as Poland’s Aleksandra Lisowska showed with her out-of-nowhere win in Munich, and Ireland’s Fionnuala McCormack, nearing her 42nd birthday, is still chasing the European medal that has eluded her across a long career on the track and the roads.

There is also a piece of history waiting to be made: no British woman has won an individual medal in this event since it was added to the championship program in 1982. The British trio of Paris 2024 Olympians Rose Harvey and Clara Evans, plus 2:24:11 debutant Abbie Donnelly, will try to change that on home roads.

Full Start List by Personal Best

Men’s Marathon (61 athletes)

Women’s Marathon (55 athletes)