Scotland and Germany are to co-host the first European Sports Championships in 2018.

Around 2,900 athletes will come to Glasgow to take part in cycling, rowing, swimming and triathlon events, while Berlin will stage athletics.

Organisers also hope to include golf at the 2014 Ryder Cup venue Gleneagles.

Scottish minister for sport Jamie Hepburn said it "will be another chance for Scotland to prove it's the perfect stage for top class events".

The new event is different from the European Games, another multi-sport competition being held for the first time this summer in Baku, Azerbaijan.

It is expected to attract a television audience of 850 million thanks to a deal with the European Broadcasting Union, which has 72 members in 56 countries.

Funded jointly by the Scottish government and Glasgow City Council, the European Sports Championships will use many of the 2014 Commonwealth Games venues.

Swimming will be at Tollcross in Glasgow, while diving and synchronised swimming will be at the Royal Commonwealth Pool in Edinburgh. The open water swimming competition will be at Loch Lomond.

The four cycling championships - track, road race, mountain-biking and BMX - will be staged together for the first time, with a new BMX track being built in Glasgow to supplement the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome and the Cathkin Braes Mountain Bike Trails.

Around 760 athletes will compete in rowing and triathlon events at the Strathclyde Country Park in North Lanarkshire.
And a further 1,500 athletes will compete in Berlin, with the Olympic Stadium hosting the athletics.

Hepburn added: "Last summer, Scotland showed the world what a tremendous job it can do when it comes to staging major sporting events, with the Commonwealth Games and the Ryder Cup both hugely successful.

"As part of the legacy of those events, we want to attract even more top-class sport to Scotland, and the European Sports Championships is certainly in that category."

Scottish athletes will compete under the Great Britain banner during the event.

Councillor Gordon Matheson, leader of Glasgow City Council, said: "We have been chosen because of our excellence and innovation and our proven ability to stage world-class events - not to mention of course our citizens' world-famous warm welcome, so superbly demonstrated during the Commonwealth Games."

Meanwhile, this summer's Baku event will also feature the European Judo Championships, which had been due to take place in Glasgow before a sponsorship row saw the city stripped of the event.

 

bbc.com

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