It may be currently flying under the radar but the staging of the European Championships in August in Glasgow and Berlin may be the beginnings of a continental sporting festival of the future.
In a new multi-sport event with six leading European Sports Federations taking part, Glasgow will host swimming, triathlon, gymnastics, cycling and rowing along with a new Team Golf Championships.
Berlin are staging the European Athletics Championships simultaneously, bringing together some of the continent’s existing individual European Championships into one co-ordinated multi-sport concept.
All of the competitions under the new brand will run over an 11-day window from August 2nd-12th. The championships will be scheduled for every four years and hosted by a different city, with organisers hoping it will steadily grow in stature.
No city has been selected for the next incarnation in 2022.
It is also an entirely different event to the European Games, which was a European Olympic Committee-driven programme hosted once by Baku, Azerbaijan, in 2015.
“It’s the inaugural event of the European Championships bringing together a number of the individual sports together under one banner,” said Scottish government minister for sport Aileen Campbell on a visit to Ireland’s National Sports Campus on Thursday. “We are excited that Glasgow and Scotland are able to be there at the start along with Berlin.”
Ryder Cup venue
As London 2016 did with tennis in staging the Olympic event at Wimbledon’s iconic Centre Court to elevate the profile of the sport, so too will Glasgow use Gleneagles to promote the golf tournament by using the 2014 Ryder Cup venue. Golf just recently made a return to the Olympic roster at Rio in 2016, with Padraig Harrington, Seamus Power and Leona Maguire representing Ireland.
The golf competition will have both individual men’s and women’s events, as well as a team event with men and women playing together and against each other.
The cycling will take place in Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome, with the open water swimming organised for Loch Lomond. Other disciplines will take place in the 2014 Commonwealth Games venues in and around Glasgow.
“This European Championships is a legacy of the work that went on in 2014 to host those games,” added Ms Campbell. “In that same year we also hosted the Ryder Cup in Gleneagles. We were determined to make sure we did something with our ancient courses to enhance the offerings Scotland has.”
Disciplines
The six sports break down into 12 different disciplines across swimming, diving, synchronised swimming, open water swimming, track cycling, BMX, mountain bike, road cycling, golf, artistic gymnastics, rowing and triathlon.
Being the first, Glasgow and Berlin will be a marker for further editions of the event, with other federations having to decide if they wish to buy into the concept.
“It is the inaugural event,” said Ms Campbell. “How that evolves beyond 2018 will be something for organisers to consider.”
As host broadcasters the umbrella body the European Broadcasting Union will ensure the event will be free-to-air on channels throughout Europe.
