Una Stancev Stevanovic

Happy birthday to Spain’s high jump champion Una Stancev, who has now won four consecutive Spanish outdoor titles and sits inside the world’s top 40.

2026 has been the best year of Una’s career and it is not finished yet. She won gold at the World University Games, added silver at the Ibero-American Championships in Lima, and earlier this month made her senior European Championships debut in Birmingham — all of it built on a personal best of 1.91m.

Four straight national outdoor titles is the number that should stop you. A high jump national championship is a knife fight decided by centimetres and nerve: one misjudged run-up, one rival having the afternoon of her life, and the streak is gone. Una has walked into that building four Augusts running and walked back out with the title every time, and she has three more from indoors on top of it. That is not a hot streak. That is a standard she sets and then defends.

She does it out of Andalusia, from La Herradura on the Granada coast, jumping for Trops-Cueva de Nerja. That stretch of shoreline is the only place in Europe where cherimoya and mango grow commercially. It is also, four years running, the place Spain’s high jump champion comes from.

¡Feliz cumpleaños, Una! Que cumplas muchos más, con mucha salud y mucha alegría, y que el listón no deje de subir. ¡Olé! 🎂🎁🎉🫶🫶🇪🇸