Italy dominated the 2023 edition of the Juniors and Under 23s European Track Championships, which took place at the Velodromo Nacional in Anadia (Portugal).
Italian athletes came out on top in the final medal table, winning a total of 22 medals: 14 gold (out of 44 at stake), 5 silver and 3 bronze, ahead of Great Britain (9, 8 and 6) and Germany (9, 2 and 8).
The continental event, which brought together a total of 387 athletes from 30 countries, also highlighted some particularly interesting individuals in the Juniors category, such as Italy's Davide Stella, who won three titles: Scratch, Elimination and Kilometre; Germany's Pete-Collin Flemming, first in the Keirin, Sprint and Team Sprint; and Juan David Sierra (Italy), gold medallist in the Team Pursuit, Madison and Juniors Points Race. Three gold medals for Italy's Matteo Bianchi: Team Sprint, Kilometre and Under 23 Keirin. Under 23s doubles for Tim Torn Teutenber (Germany) in the Elimination and Omnium, for Ireland's Lara Gillespie in the Omnium and the Under 23 Points Race, for Belgian Junior Hélène Hesters gold medal in the Elimination and Omnium, for Italy's Under 23 Mattia Predomo (Team Sprint and Sprint) and Great Britain's Rihanna Parris-Smith (Team Sprint and 500m), as well as for the Juniors Federica Venturelli (Team Pursuit and Individual Pursuit), Viorica Rand (500m and Team Sprint) and the Junior Matteo Fiorin (Italy) in the Madison and Team Pursuit, same titles won by the Britons Madelaine Leech and Sophie Lewis in the Women’s Under 23.
At these European Championships in Anadia, Italy's Luca Giaimi set a new world record (3'07''596) in the Junior Individual Pursuit final, improving on his own record (3'08''485) set in the qualifying round. Italy (Luca Giaimi, Juan David Sierra, Renato Favero, Matteo Fiorin and Etienne Grimod) also set a new world record in the Junior Team Pursuit with a time of 3'53"980.
Other results included Great Britain's successes in the two Under 23s Team Pursuit races, Karolina Keliukh (Ukraine) in the Juniors Sprint, Phillip Mathiesen (Denmark) in the Under 23s Scratch, Hector Alvarez (Spain) in the Juniors Omnium, Alessa-Catriona Propster (Germany) in the Sprint Under 23s, and the Austrians Raphael Kokas and Maximilian Schmidbauer in the Madison Under 23s.
The next edition of the European Juniors and Under 23 Track Championships will take place in Cottbus (Germany) from 9 to 14 July 2024.
