Skopje, the capital of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, will stage the 2018 edition of the European Mountain Running Championships on 1 July.
This will be the second time Skopje has held a major continental athletics championships after staging the European 10,000m Cup in 2014.
The 2017 edition of the European Mountain Running Championships was held in Kamnik, Slovenia with Italy’s Xavier Chevrier and Switzerland’s Maude Mathys claiming the individual senior titles on an uphill course.
As is customary in even years, the 2018 edition of the European Mountain Running Championships will be staged on an uphill and downhill course. The event itself will take place on the Vodno Mountain to the south-west of Skopje. One of the standout features of the mountain is Millennium Cross on Krstovar peak, one of the biggest Christian crosses in the world.
The European Mountain Running Championships has been staged annually since 1995 on either an uphill course or an uphill and downhill course. Italy has been the most successful nation in championship history, winning the men’s team title on 20 successive occasions from 1997 to 2016 while the women's team have claimed the team title on 13 occasions.
Individually, Türkiye’s Ahmet Arsalan has been the most successful athlete in championship history with six successive gold medals from 2007 to 2012 while Austria’s Andrea Mayr is the most successful athlete on the women’s side with four individual titles, including three successive titles between 2013 and 2015.