Great Britain will participate with a serious team of 70 selected athletes and two “wild cards” at the European Athletics Championships in Rome from June 7 to 12. The team includes current world heptathlon champion Katarina Johnson-Thompson and the world 800m silver medalist Keely Hodgkinson, as well as the male athletes Matthew Hudson-Smith, who is world’s silver medalist in 400m and the world’s bronze medalist in the 100m Zharnel Hughes.
Keely Hodgkinson and Matthew Hudson-Smith was given wild cards as the reigning 800m and 200m champions, but he opted to start in the 100m in Rome.
Katarina Johnson-Thompson automatically made the team as world champion.
Keely Hodgkinson won the silver medal at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, breaking the British record set by Kelly Holmes in 1995. She is the 2022 and 2023 World Championships as well as the 2022 Commonwealth Games silver medalist, 2022 European champion and a two-time European indoor champion from 2021 and 2023, with her 2021 title secured as the youngest ever continental women’s indoor 800m winner.
Katarina Johnson-Thompson is an English athlete in combined events. She is primarily known as both a heptathlete and an indoor pentathlete. In heptathlon she is a double world champion and double Commonwealth Games champion. In indoor pentathlon, she is a world and double European champion.
