Spain sweeps race walking at European Championships with two golds and a world record in Birmingham

Spain sweeps race walking at European Championships in Birmingham

Spain collected two golds, one silver, and one bronze in race walking at the European Athletics Championships in Birmingham. María Pérez and Paul McGrath won half marathon golds, Miguel Ángel López took silver in the marathon, and Raquel González earned bronze in the women's marathon.

María Pérez: world record and second European title

María Pérez won the women's half marathon race walk in 1:30:06, breaking the world record for the distance. The Granadan from Orce became a two-time European champion, adding to her 2018 Berlin gold in the 20km. Trained by Jacinto Garzón since age 11, she holds four consecutive world titles (20km and 35km at Budapest 2023 and Tokyo 2025), Olympic gold in the mixed relay and silver in the 20km at Paris 2024, and a Spanish 10km record set days earlier in Málaga.

Pérez treated 2026 as a transition year, racing only twice before Birmingham: third in A Coruña and a win at the Spanish Championships in Málaga. On the cobblestone circuit around Victoria Square, with 130 runners across both sexes, she led from the first metre. Only Italian friend Antonella Palmisano could follow before fading to fifth. Pérez walked alone to the finish, slowing in the final metres to collect a Spanish flag. Her targets remain the 2027 World Championships and the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, after which she plans to pause her career to pursue motherhood. In 2022, she was disqualified at both the World and European Championships for technical irregularities, but rebounded in March 2023 by setting the Spanish 20km record.

I'm happy. I owe nothing to race walking. Neither I to it nor it to me. All that's left is to enjoy.

Paul McGrath: first international gold at 24

Paul McGrath won the men's half marathon in 1:23:23, a personal best and his first international gold. The 24-year-old from Barcelona, son of a Scottish father and Catalan mother, broke away after 12 kilometres, finishing 13 seconds ahead of Italy's Fortunato (silver) and 26 seconds ahead of Italy's Cosi (bronze). His previous medals were silver at the 2024 European Championships in Rome and bronze at the 2025 World Championships in Tokyo.

McGrath, who studies journalism and will intern at ABC in Barcelona next year, told El Mundo that after his Tokyo bronze he experienced an existential crisis, wondering whether his career had peaked, which drove him to study intensively. His coach, Alejandro Aragoneses, also trains Raquel González. A Celtic fan who wears a Virgen de Montserrat necklace, McGrath plans to pilgrimage by car to the Montserrat monastery.

From now on, a silver or a bronze I'm going to feel as a failure. It's hard to say.

Marathon medals and a second world record

Raquel González, 36, earned Spain's fourth medal with bronze in the women's marathon, her 24th international cap. She positioned herself in third from kilometre 24 and held for 17 kilometres. She previously won silver in the 35km at Munich 2022. Italy's Sofia Fiorini won in 3:15:11, a world record and European U23 record, with Poland's Katarzyna Zdzieblo second in 3:18:48. Spanish debutants Laura Redondo (3:22:53, seventh) and Laura Monje Martínez (3:20:13, eleventh) also finished.