Isabella Tikovsky

Happy birthday to Germany’s sprinter Isabella Tikovsky, who won a national title last month and was racing at a European Championships twelve days later.

On 5 July at the Lohrheidestadion in Bochum-Wattenscheid, Isabella won the German U18 200m championship in 24.31, a personal best, and in the same race she hit the qualifying standard for the European U18 Championships. Her own verdict was as unsentimental as the run: she had trained for it, hoped for it, and the will to win made the difference. Winning a German age-group sprint title is genuinely hard — German sprinting has extraordinary depth right now, and she beat all of it.

Twelve days later she was on a start line in Rieti, Italy, at the European U18 Championships. She came through her 200m heat and into the semi-finals in her first international championship, and her reaction afterwards was three words long and entirely sixteen: “Es war so geil!” Anyone who has had a good day at a big meet knows exactly that feeling, and most people never get to have it in a national vest.

Her winter had already produced the foundation. At the German youth indoor championships in Sindelfingen she set personal bests over both 60m and 200m in the space of two days, and outdoors she has run 11.79 for 100m. She races for LG Sempt in the Erding area of Bavaria, and credits her coaches, plural, for getting her through a hot week in Italy.

Sixteen-year-olds who win national titles are not rare. Sixteen-year-olds who win a national title and then go and race a European Championships within a fortnight, in the same season they first broke through, are considerably rarer. There is a great deal more of this to come.

Alles Gute zum Geburtstag, Isabella! Wir wünschen dir Gesundheit, Glück und viel Erfolg im neuen Lebensjahr — und noch viele schnelle Rennen. Hoch soll sie leben! 🎂🎁🎉🫶🫶🇩🇪