Over 4,700 athletes will compete, and a total of 177 gold medals will be awarded: The European Championships will be held for the second time after 2018. Strictly speaking, these are European championships in nine different sports that are simply taking place at the same time in one place. The aim is, among other things, to draw more attention to disciplines such as athletics, climbing or triathlon and to advertise future Olympic applications – also and especially to Germans, who are known to be skeptical about the Olympic Games in their own country.
German applications have been unsuccessful seven times since 1986, also because the citizens were against it – for example when trying to host the 2022 Winter Games with Munich and the 2024 Summer Games with Hamburg. The last attempt by the Rhine-Ruhr Initiative for 2032 also failed. The upcoming summer games will take place in Paris in 2024, in Los Angeles in 2028 and in Brisbane, Australia, in 2032. The next winter hosts in 2026 are Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo.
For Munich, the European Championships mean the biggest sporting event since the Olympic Games in 1972 and, of course, the track and field competitions are held in the Olympic Stadium.