From club track to Alexander Stadium: the clubs that produced GB's 2026 team

It is easy to watch a home European Championships and only see the stadium: 18,000 seats, a nine lane track, a medal ceremony. Every athlete standing on that podium started somewhere much smaller, at a club training night that looked a lot like the ones happening at tracks up and down the country every week.

Amy Hunt, Charnwood

Amy Hunt became the first athlete to win four titles at a single European Athletics Championships, taking the 100m, 200m, women's 4x100m and mixed 4x100m relay gold at Birmingham 2026. She competes for Charnwood and is coached by Marco Airale, a reminder that a Midlands club and a home Olympic-stadium-scale stage are not as far apart as they look.

Georgia Hunter Bell, Belgrave Harriers

Georgia Hunter Bell won the women's 1500m at Birmingham 2026, adding a European title to a World Indoor Championship she already held in the same event. Her club is Belgrave Harriers, coached by Trevor Painter, one of many London clubs that quietly produce senior internationals alongside members who are simply there for a Tuesday night session.

Why this matters for your own club

Neither Charnwood nor Belgrave Harriers is a specialist Olympic academy. They are affiliated UK athletics clubs, the same kind listed all over this site, run largely by volunteers, that anyone can walk into and join. If you are weighing up whether joining a club is worth it, or whether your own club is "good enough" to be worth training at seriously, it is worth remembering that this is genuinely where it starts for almost everyone.

See our guide to finding and joining an athletics club, or browse tracks near you to see which clubs train at your own local track.