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All photos with special thanks to European Athletics.
The three finalists for the 2024 Women’s European Sportswoman of the Year award have won Olympic and European gold this summer and some of the most iconic sporting moments of the year.
The winners of the European Women’s and Men’s Athletes of the Year and Rising Star Awards will be announced at the Golden Tracks Awards, which will be held on 26 October in Skopje, Republic of North Macedonia, and will be broadcast live on the European Athletics YouTube channel.
From a longlist of 10 athletes, the three finalists were decided based on a four-part vote: public vote, member federation vote, media vote and the European Athletics Expert Group vote, each accounting for a quarter of the vote. general vote.
In alphabetical order, the three participants of the best sportswomen of the year 2024 in Europe are:
Femke Ball (NED)
- European 400m hurdles and 4x400m champion
- Olympic champion in the 4x400m medley
- Olympic Games 4x400m silver and 400m hurdles bronze medalist
- 400m indoor world record holder: 49.17
- 400m and 4x400m indoor world champion
- European 400m hurdles record holder: 50.95
- Diamond League 400m Hurdle Champion
Femke Boll is vying for her third consecutive European Women’s Sportsperson of the Year award after winning the crown in 2022 and 2023. And the Dutchwoman has had another monumental season to put herself right in contention for an unprecedented hat-trick.
He produced a superb indoor season, winning the 400m at the Glasgow Indoor Athletics Championships in a world record 49.17, before anchoring the Dutch to 4x400m gold. In the outdoor arena, he won 400m hurdles gold and 4x400m gold at the 2024 European Athletics Championships in Rome.
Ever the faithful relay runner, she also ran in the 4x400m medley and won bronze with her Dutch teammates. In the run-up to the Olympics, he set a European record at La Chaux-de-Fonds of 50.95. On to Paris and he won his first Olympic gold medal in the 4x400m medley, brilliantly taking the gold on the last leg with a characteristic burst, a last leg time of 47.93.
She was disappointed to finish behind rival Sydney McLaughlin-Levron with only a bronze medal in the 400m hurdles, but then added silver in the women’s 4x400m to complete her medal haul.
Kelly Hodgkinson (GBR)
- 800 m European champion
- 800m Olympic champion
- World leader: 1:54.61
From 2021, the British runner will be incredibly close to becoming the leading women’s 800m runner on the planet, having won Olympic silver and two world silvers. But this year was the year he took the final step to the top.
His first bi-district race came at the Diamond League in Eugene, and a brilliant 1:55.78 victory set the tone for the coming summer. Next came Rome 2024, where he rode a controlled race to win his second ever European gold despite coming down with a head cold.
En route to Paris, Hodgkinson moved into sixth on the world all-time 800m list with a time of 1:54.61 in front of her home crowd at London’s Diamond League before underscoring her status as a dominant 800m runner by sprinting to gold. At Stade de France: 1:56.72.
Jaroslava Mahuchych (UKR)
- European high jump champion
- Olympic high jump champion
- High jump world record holder: 2.10m
- Diamond League Champion
Since winning silver with a distance of 2.04m at the 2019 World Athletics Championships aged just 18, Jaroslava Mahuchych has been marked as a generational talent and 2024 was the year she made her name in high jump history.
She was on a low note when she finished second behind fellow Australian Nicola Ollislagers at the World Indoor Athletics Championships in Glasgow in March. But it was nothing short of a spectacular year for the Ukrainian, winning her second gold medal at the European Athletics Championships in Rome in June.
She then broke the 37-year-old world record held by Stefka Kostadinova at the Diamond League in Paris in July when she cleared 2.10m before returning to Paris the following month to win Olympic gold and complete her collection of major high jump titles. 22 years old.
The last ten best sportswomen of the year in Europe.
- 2023 – Femke Ball (NED)
- 2022 – Femke Ball (NED)
- 2021 – Sifan Hassan (NED)
- 2020 – not held
- 2019 – Maria Lasitskene (Russia)
- 2018 – Dina Usher-Smith (GBR)
- 2017 – Katerina Stefanidi (GRE)
- 2016 – Ruth Beitia (ESP)
- 2015 – Daphne Schippers (NED)
- 2014 – Daphne Schippers (NED)
- 2013 – Zuzana Hejnova (Czech Republic)
Chris Broadbent for European Athletics
