BIRMINGHAM, Aug 9 — A host of top names will grace the European athletics championships that start Monday in Birmingham.

Armand ‘Mondo’ Duplantis, Karsten Warholm and Keely Hodgkinson are but three of a raft of elite track and field stars who will make the trip to the English city.

AFP Sport looks at five athletes who could claim their own moment in the spotlight:

Audrey Werro (SUI)

One of the most hotly-anticipated races will be the women’s 800m.

It pitches home hope Keely Hodgkinson and Dutchwoman Femke Broeders-Bol, the former world 400m hurdles champion, against Werro, the Swiss runner still widely unknown to the larger audience despite her incredible recent form.

Werro clocked a blistering 1:53.80 to win at the Paris Diamond League.

Competition is such that the oldest world record in athletics history could be in doubt: the 1:53.28 set in 1983 by Jarmila Kratochvilova of then-Czechoslovakia.

Lamont Marcell Jacobs (ITA)

It seems incongruous to include the Tokyo Olympics 100m champion in a list of who might star at the first European champs to be held in Britain.

But the 31-year-old Jacobs is back to a rich vein of form at just the right time.

The Italian raced to an astonishing 9.67sec in the 100m at the Austrian Open in Eisenstadt in early July, albeit with a tailwind of 4.1m/s.

It was the third fastest men’s 100m in all conditions in history, only surpassed by Usain Bolt’s world record of 9.58 set at the 2009 world championships in Berlin and his Olympic 100m record of 9.63 from London in 2012.

Jacobs could realistically target a third consecutive men’s Euro 100m title to match Russian Valeriy Borzov (1969, 1971, 1974) and Britain’s Linford Christie (1986, 1990, 1994).

Yaroslava Mahuchikh (UKR)

Still just 24 years old, Mahuchikh is already the winner of four senior global titles: 2022 and 2026 world indoor championships, the 2023 world outdoor championships and the Paris Olympics in 2024.

The three-time Diamond League title holder will be gunning for a third European title after winning in Rome in 2024 and Munich two years previously.

Mahuchikh, who set the world record of 2.10m at the 2024 Paris Diamond League, has won all but one of her competitions this season.

In the absence of circuit rivals Nicola Olyslagers and Eleanor Patterson, both of Australia, the odds are on for the Ukrainian sealing a treble at continental level.

Georgia Hunter Bell (GBR)

Hunter Bell is a late bloomer who won silver in the 1,500m at the Rome Euros in 2024.

Since then, 32-year-old Hunter Bell won Olympic 1500m bronze in Paris and 800m silver at the 2025 world championships in Tokyo, outpacing her training partner Keely Hodgkinson in the last 30 metres. In March she claimed the world indoor 1,500m title in Torun.

And only last week, Hunter Bell won her first major outdoor title at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow where she kicked away from world champion Lilian Odira for 800m gold.

France’s Agathe Guillemot, the world indoor champion, and Hunter Bell’s Irish training partner Sarah Healy, the reigning European indoor 3,000m champion, are likely to be the Briton’s main opposition.

Samuel Vessat (FRA)

Vessat ran 44.24sec to shatter Leslie Djhone’s French 400m record in Albi last month. It made him the fourth fastest European of all time.

The 24-year-old only started competitive running in 2024 after shining on the basketball court for Edward Waters University.

Now enrolled on a track scholarship with Purdue University, Vessat could be the one to push local favourite and two-time former champion Matthew Hudson-Smith for glory in the one-lap event.

A darkhorse, but one his rivals will have their eye on. — AFP