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The European Athlete of the Year award is an annual prize for sportspeople from Europe participating in athletics, including track and field, road running, and cross country running competitions. The election has been organised by the European Athletic Association (EAA), the European governing body for the sport of athletics, since 1993.

Each year, a shortlist is created by selecting the top European athlete in each event, based upon performances at the year's major championships. Only in exceptional circumstances will more than one athlete be shortlisted per event. Athletes who have served a doping ban of two years or more are ineligible.^[1] Via the EAA website, fans, media, and members of the EAA federations are allowed to vote for five male and five female athletes on the list, with athletes receiving one to five points based on their ranking. A panel of experts also cast their votes. The votes of each of the four groups comprises 25% of the athletes' total scores, and the male and female athletes with the highest combined points totals win.^[2]^[3]

In 2007, a separate European Athletics Rising Star of the Year award was established for athletes under 23 years of age as a way of acknowledging young competitors' achievements on their way to becoming senior athletes.^[4]

Both awards are presented during the annual Golden Tracks gala of the EEA. Waterford Crystal sponsored the event from 2002–2008 and Mondo, a manufacturer of track and field equipment and facilities, sponsored the 2009 presentation.^[5]^[6]

Winner statistics

Long-distance runner Mo Farah of Great Britain is the only athlete, male or female, to win the main award three times. Czech javelin legend Jan Železný, British triple jumper Jonathan Edwards with his Swedish rival Christian Olsson, Norwegian hurdler Karsten Warholm, Norwegian middle/long-distance runner Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Swedish pole vaulter Armand Duplantis have won the men's award twice, while Sweden's heptathlete Carolina Klüft, Russian pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva, Croatian high jumper Blanka Vlašić, Dutch sprinter Dafne Schippers, and Dutch sprinter/hurdler Femke Bol have won the women's award twice each.

Warholm, Ingebrigtsen, Duplantis and Bol have each completed the triple of the Rising Star award, followed by two senior awards. Three athletes have completed the double of the Rising Star trophy followed by the senior award: sprinter Christophe Lemaitre of France, Great Britain's heptathlete Jessica Ennis-Hill and Ukrainian's high jumper Yaroslava Mahuchikh.

For the first time in award history, the men’s European Athlete of the Year trophy in 2022 was awarded jointly to Duplantis and Ingebrigtsen who both won three major gold medals and revised the record books in 2022.^[7] Duplantis and Ingebrigtsen were also jointly named men’s Rising Star in 2018, a first in the award history too.

Carolina Klüft and Christophe Lemaitre were the youngest European Athletes of the Year so far. They were only 20 when winning this accolade in 2003 and 2010 respectively.^[8]

Athlete of the Year winners

European Athlete of the Year winners
Year	Men	Women	Ref.
1993	Linford Christie	Sally Gunnell	^[9]^[10]
1994	Colin Jackson	Irina Privalova	^[9]^[10]
1995	Jonathan Edwards (1/2)	Sonia O'Sullivan	^[9]^[10]
1996	Jan Železný (1/2)	Svetlana Masterkova	^[9]^[10]
1997	Wilson Kipketer	Astrid Kumbernuss	^[9]^[10]
1998	Jonathan Edwards (2/2)	Christine Arron	^[9]^[10]
1999	Tomáš Dvořák	Gabriela Szabo	^[9]^[10]
2000	Jan Železný (2/2)	Trine Hattestad	^[9]^[10]
2001	André Bucher	Stephanie Graf	^[9]^[10]
2002	Dwain Chambers	Süreyya Ayhan	^[9]^[10]
2003	Christian Olsson (1/2)	Carolina Klüft (1/2)	^[9]^[10]
2004	Christian Olsson (2/2)	Kelly Holmes	^[9]^[10]
2005	Virgilijus Alekna	Yelena Isinbayeva (1/2)	^[9]^[10]
2006	Francis Obikwelu	Carolina Klüft (2/2)	^[9]^[10]
2007	Tero Pitkämäki	Blanka Vlašić (1/2)	^[9]^[10]
2008	Andreas Thorkildsen	Yelena Isinbayeva (2/2)	^[9]^[10]
2009	Phillips Idowu	Marta Domínguez	^[11]
2010	Christophe Lemaitre	Blanka Vlašić (2/2)	^[9]^[10]
2011	Mo Farah (1/3)	Mariya Savinova	^[12]
2012	Mo Farah (2/3)	Jessica Ennis	^[9]^[10]
2013	Bohdan Bondarenko	Zuzana Hejnová	^[13]
2014	Renaud Lavillenie	Dafne Schippers (1/2)	^[14]
2015	Greg Rutherford	Dafne Schippers (2/2)	^[15]
2016	Mo Farah (3/3)	Ruth Beitia	^[16]
2017	Johannes Vetter	Katerina Stefanidi	^[17]
2018	Kevin Mayer	Dina Asher-Smith	^[18]
2019	Karsten Warholm (1/2)	Mariya Lasitskene	^[19]
2020	not awarded^{[note 1]}
2021	Karsten Warholm (2/2)	Sifan Hassan	^[20]
2022	Armand Duplantis(1/2)	Femke Bol (1/2)	^[7]
2022	Jakob Ingebrigtsen (1/2)	Femke Bol (1/2)	^[7]
2023	Jakob Ingebrigtsen (2/2)	Femke Bol (2/2)	^[21]
2024	Armand Duplantis (2/2)	Yaroslava Mahuchikh	^[22]

Rising Star of the Year winners

European Athletics Rising Star of the Year winners
Year	Men	Women	Ref.
2007	Andrew Howe	Jessica Ennis	^[23]
2008	Raphael Holzdeppe	Stephanie Twell	^[23]
2009	Christophe Lemaitre	Karoline Bjerkeli Grøvdal	^[23]
2010	Teddy Tamgho	Sandra Perković	^[23]
2011	David Storl	Jodie Williams	^[12]
2012	Pavel Maslák	Angelica Bengtsson	^[23]
2013	Emir Bekrić	Aníta Hinriksdóttir	^[13]
2014	Adam Gemili	Mariya Kuchina	^[14]
2015	Konrad Bukowiecki	Noemi Zbären	^[15]
2016	Max Heß	Nafissatou Thiam	^[16]
2017	Karsten Warholm	Yuliya Levchenko	^[17]
2018	Armand Duplantis	Elvira Herman	^[18]
2018	Jakob Ingebrigtsen	Elvira Herman	^[18]
2019	Niklas Kaul	Yaroslava Mahuchikh	^[19]
2020	not awarded^{[note 1]}
2021	Sasha Zhoya	Femke Bol	^[20]
2022	Mykolas Alekna	Elina Tzengko	^[24]
2023	Mattia Furlani	Angelina Topić	^[21]
2024	Niels Laros	Adriana Vilagoš	^[22]