From a local perspective, hammer throwers Iosif Kesidis and Valentina Savva will share the spotlight in the U23 events at the 2026 European Throwing Cup in Nicosia, Cyprus on 14-15 March.
How to watch
The 2026 European Throwing Cup will be streamed live on the European Athletics website without any geoblocking restrictions.
Final entries
Timetable
Live results (link to follow)
Five to watch
Iosif Kesidis (CYP)
Armin Szabados (HUN)
Valentina Savva (CYP)
Maria Rafailidou (GRE)
Mykhailo Brudin (UKR)
Kesidis v Szabados for U23 hammer gold in Nicosia
Kesidis will be seeking back-to-back victories in the men’s U23 hammer. He made history last year by becoming the first ever Cypriot to win a title at the European Throwing Cup, hauling the implement out to 72.96m for a significant victory.
And the 20-year-old is already reaping the rewards of another year of winter training under his belt. Kesidis added more than two metres to his lifetime best in the very stadium at the end of February, setting a national record of 77.32m at the Cypriot Winter Throwing Championships.
But in what could be one of the clashes of the championships, Kesidis will need to be in this sort of form to defeat Hungary’s Armin Szabados, another rising talent of not just European, but global hammer throwing as well.
Szabados won the European U20 title in Tampere last year before finishing an excellent eighth on his senior debut at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo as the youngest athlete in the field by four years.
Competing as a guest at the Croatian Winter Throwing Championships last weekend, Szabados took the victory with 77.64m, the second longest throw of his nascent career.
And there is a plausible possibility of a Cypriot double in the U23 hammer. The women’s entry-list is highlighted by the 2023 European U20 champion Valentina Savva, the only thrower in the field to have broken the 70 metre-barrier with 70.22m.
She will face a small but competitive line-up featuring France’s Florella Freyche who has already set a PB of 69.08m this year and Sweden’s Patricia Kamga whose sister Vanessa won the senior women’s discus title last year.
The youngest athlete in the field is 17-year-old Ukrainian Polina Dzerozhynska who won the European Youth Olympic Festival title last year with 71.50m albeit with a lighter implement.
With the senior implement, Dzerozhynska's best mark stands at 64.07m and she recently won the U23 title at her domestic championships in sub-zero temperatures with 62.44m.
Rafailidou, Brudin and Dehning also in the spotlight
The rest of the U23 competitions will also be replete with medallists from recent age-group championships.
In the women’s shot, European U18 and U20 champion Maria Rafailidou from Greece will be looking to make her first impact at U23 level. Rafailidou recently set a lifetime best of 16.59m to win the Greek indoor title.
She will face a line-up including Germany’s European U23 bronze medallist Helena Kopp who leads the entry-list with 16.90m and Ukraine’s Anhelina Shepel, the silver medallist behind Rafailidou at the European Athletics U20 Championships last August.
2023 European U20 champion Mykhailo Brudin is another high profile name in action in the U23 discus. The Ukrainian, who lives and trains in Spain, is the only thrower in the field who has surpassed the 60 metre-barrier with 61.33m. Can he finally take the victory in his fourth appearance in this competition?
And can Germany’s Max Dehning find some better form again in the U23 javelin? Dehning caused a stir two years ago when he broke Steve Backley’s European U23 record with 90.20m but the 21-year-old has struggled to replicate this form since.
The line-up also features his German teammate Florian Schmid and 2025 European U20 champion Rafael Mahiques from Spain.
In other U23 events, Alexandr Mazur is in contention for a rare victory for Moldova in the shot put having recently set a 20.17m PB while Italy’s Sofia Coppari and Switzerland’s Sabrina Boss lead the entry-lists for the women’s discus and javelin with recently set PBs of 54.98m and 55.05m respectively.