Former Piotr Nurowski Prize (PNP) for Best European Young Athlete winners have enjoyed great success at the European Athletics Championships in Rome.
Ukraine’s Yaroslava Mahuchikh was voted as the winner of the PNP by Europe’s National Olympic Committees (NOCs) in 2019, and her European Athletics Championships gold medal in the women’s high jump is the latest achievement of her glittering career.
The now-22-year-old cleared 2.01 metres at the Stadio Olimpico to clinch Ukraine’s first gold of the Championships.
Since becoming the ninth winner of the Summer edition of the PNP in 2019, Mahuchikh has won women’s high jump gold at the 2023 European Games in Kraków-Małopolska and at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest two months later. After winning bronze at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, she will be aiming for gold in Paris next month.
Second behind Mahuchikh in the women’s high jump was Serbia’s Angelina Topić, who the European NOCs voted as the 11th winner of the Summer PNP in 2022.
Now aged 18, Topić is also excelling at major competitions, and cleared 1.97m to take silver and win her country’s first medal at this year’s European Athletics Championships.
Both Mahuchikh and Topić have met the entry standard to qualify for the women’s high jump at the upcoming Olympic Games in Paris.
Podium of the womens high jump, left to right:
Angelina TOPIC (SRB), silver
Yaroslava MAHUCHIKH (UKR), gold
Iryna GERASHCHENKO (UKR), bronze. (Photo by (c)Ulf Schiller/athletix.c)
Greek pole vaulter Emmanouil Karalis became the third PNP winner to medal in Rome, taking silver on the final night of competition. He cleared 5.87m to finish second to Swedish star Armand Duplantis, and match his second-place finish at the European Games in Kraków-Małopolska last year.
Now 24, Karalis was the sixth winner of the Summer PNP in 2016.
Emmanouil Karalis (GRE) (Photo by AMNA)
Adriana Vilagoš of Serbia placed second in the voting for the PNP in 2021 and she secured a silver medal in the women’s javelin throwwith a 64.42m effort in the final. Vilagoš, now aged 20, is also a two-time world under-20 champion.
The PNP is awarded annually by the European Olympic Committees (EOC) for Winter and Summer sports to an athlete aged between 14 and 18 who has excelled in their sport and embodied the Olympic Values.
Each of the five shortlisted finalists receive a training scholarship to support their development.
The 2024 Summer edition of the PNP will be awarded later in the year, after Finland’s Nordic combined athlete Minja Korhonen won the Winter PNP at the 53rd EOC General Assembly in Bucharest last week.
