Erika Saraceni: Age, Career, Records and Triple Jump Results
The Italian triple jumper moved from junior medals to senior European competition, setting a 14.50m personal best in Birmingham in 2026.
Updated: August 28, 2026
Erika Saraceni’s progress has been unusually easy to measure.
In 2023, she jumped 13.42m. A year later, she reached 13.47m and won bronze at the World U20 Championships. In 2025 came a much bigger jump forward: 14.24m, European U20 gold and a place at the senior World Championships.
Then came 2026.
After an operation and a delayed start to her season, Saraceni returned with 14.41m at the Italian Championships. Less than three weeks later, she jumped 14.50m in Birmingham, the best mark of her career.
She was 20 years old.
That sequence explains why Saraceni has moved quickly from being one of Italy’s leading junior athletes to competing in major senior championships. Her results, rather than hype around her potential, tell the story.
Erika Saraceni Quick Facts
| Fact | Details |
|---|---|
| Full name | Erika Giorgia Anoeta Saraceni |
| Date of birth | May 21, 2006 |
| Age | 20 years old |
| Birthplace | Milan, Italy |
| Nationality | Italian |
| Sport | Athletics |
| Main event | Triple jump |
| Height | 1.68 m |
| Weight | 54 kg |
| Current club | G.S. Fiamme Azzurre |
| Coaches | Eugenio Paolino and Aldo Maggi |
| Outdoor triple jump PB | 14.50m |
| Indoor triple jump PB | 13.71m |
| European U20 title | Gold, 2025 |
| World U20 medal | Bronze, 2024 |
| Senior World Championships debut | Tokyo 2025 |
| Senior European Championships debut | Birmingham 2026 |
FIDAL lists Saraceni as a Milan-born athlete with G.S. Fiamme Azzurre and names Eugenio Paolino and Aldo Maggi as her coaches. World Athletics records her date of birth as May 21, 2006 and her outdoor triple jump best as 14.50m.
Who Is Erika Saraceni?
Erika Giorgia Anoeta Saraceni is an Italian track and field athlete who competes mainly in the triple jump.
Born in Milan on May 21, 2006, she built her reputation through age-group competitions before moving into senior international athletics. Her major junior results include gold at the 2023 European Youth Olympic Festival, bronze at the 2024 World U20 Championships and gold at the 2025 European U20 Championships.
By 2025, she was already competing against senior athletes for Italy.
Her first senior World Championships came in Tokyo that September. In 2026, she made the final of the European Athletics Championships in Birmingham after producing a 14.50m personal best in qualification.
Early Life and an Athletics Family
Athletics was part of Saraceni’s life long before the triple jump became her event.
Her father, Enrico Saraceni, was a 400m runner who represented Italy in relay competition and later became a world masters champion. Her mother, Rosa Anibaldi, also had an athletics connection. FIDAL notes that Erika’s parents met through the sport.
She did not spend her childhood focused on a single discipline.
Saraceni also tried artistic gymnastics, swimming, diving and snowboarding. On the track, she initially competed in events that looked very different from the triple jump.
As a cadet athlete, she trained for the 300m hurdles. She reached an Italian championship final in 2021, but fell at the first hurdle.
A few weeks later she tried the triple jump in competition.
It stuck.
That first experiment eventually became the event around which her international career was built.
How Triple Jump Became Her Main Event
Saraceni’s move into the triple jump was not completely straightforward.
FIDAL’s athlete biography says she trained with Paolo Brambilla in Treviglio during 2022. A hamstring problem disrupted that period, after which she returned to jumping under Aldo Maggi and changed her take-off foot to the right.
The results began to move soon after.
Her early senior profile still included marks in the long jump and sprint events, but the triple jump became the obvious focus.
By July 2023, she was no longer simply an interesting Italian prospect.
She was winning internationally.
2023: Gold in Maribor
The 2023 European Youth Olympic Festival in Maribor produced Saraceni’s first major international title.
She won the triple jump with 13.42m.
At the time, the mark was a major step in her development and a national best for her age category, according to FIDAL.
Later that summer she competed at the European U20 Championships in Jerusalem. Although still younger than many athletes in the field, she finished fourth.
It was a useful result for another reason.
Saraceni was beginning to compete regularly against athletes from the next age group rather than staying within her own category.
2024: World U20 Bronze in Lima
Her first global championship medal arrived in Peru.
At the 2024 World Athletics U20 Championships in Lima, Saraceni produced a personal best of 13.47m in the women’s triple jump final.
That earned her bronze.
Sharifa Davronova of Uzbekistan won with 13.75m, China’s Yi Li took silver at 13.55m, and Saraceni finished third with her 13.47m jump.
It was only a five-centimetre improvement from her 2023 best, but the medal mattered more than the size of the increase.
She had reached a global podium.
Her next season would bring a much larger change in distance.
2025: The Year Saraceni Broke 14 Metres
Saraceni’s 2025 season changed the scale of her results.
She started the year strongly indoors.
At the Italian Indoor Championships in Ancona on February 23, she won the senior women’s triple jump title with 13.71m, setting an indoor personal best. FIDAL’s official results list her as Italian champion despite the fact she was still a junior athlete.
Then she moved beyond 14 metres outdoors.
On May 21, 2025, her 19th birthday, she jumped 14.01m in Savona. World Athletics results placed her second behind Olympic champion Thea LaFond.
A month later came another improvement.
14.08m in Madrid and a Senior Italy Debut
At the European Athletics Team Championships in Madrid on June 28, Saraceni represented Italy in senior international competition.
She jumped 14.08m and finished third.
Germany’s Caroline Joyeux won with 14.42m, Maja Åskag of Sweden took second at 14.18m, and Saraceni’s 14.08m earned Italy third place in the event.
That competition marked more than another personal best.
It showed that her junior performances were beginning to translate into senior fields.
Tampere made that point even clearer.
European U20 Champion in Tampere
Saraceni entered the 2025 European U20 Championships as one of the leading athletes in the women’s triple jump.
She delivered.
In the final on August 8, she opened with 14.08m and later reached 14.24m with legal wind, winning the European U20 title.
The 14.24m jump set a European U20 Championships record and improved her Italian U20 record.
That wording matters.
The mark was not the European U20 record for all competitions. It was the championship record for the European U20 Championships and the Italian national U20 record.
Saraceni’s winning margin was also large. Romania’s Daria Vrînceanu took silver with 13.75m, 49 centimetres behind the Italian’s winning mark.
For Saraceni, 14.24m was another jump into a different level of competition.
The next stop was the senior World Championships.
Erika Saraceni at the 2025 World Championships
Saraceni competed at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo in September 2025.
She did not make the triple jump final.
Her best qualifying jump was 13.82m, which placed her 17th in the combined qualification standings. Twelve athletes advanced.
Seen only as a placing, 17th may look like a step backwards after Tampere.
The context was different.
Tokyo was a senior global championship. Saraceni had been a junior European champion only weeks earlier and was now competing against many of the world’s established triple jumpers.
It was her first look at that level.
A Difficult Start to 2026
The start of 2026 did not follow the smooth upward line of the previous season.
FIDAL reports that Saraceni underwent surgery for sports hernias early in the year. A problem with her right hip then delayed her competitive return.
That meant she arrived late to the outdoor season.
Her first major performance made the delay look less damaging than it might have been.
At the Italian Championships in Florence on July 25, she jumped 14.41m.
It was a new personal best.
She also won the Italian title, beating Dariya Derkach, who finished second with 14.36m.
Sixteen days later, Saraceni improved again.
14.50m Personal Best at Birmingham 2026
The biggest jump of Saraceni’s career came at the European Athletics Championships in Birmingham.
On August 10, 2026, she landed at 14.50m with a +0.7 m/s wind during qualification.
The mark was legal.
It was a personal best.
It was also the leading mark across the qualification round.
The performance came in only her second competition of the season after surgery, according to the Birmingham 2026 competition report.
Her progression by that point looked like this:
| Season | Best Triple Jump |
|---|---|
| 2023 | 13.42m |
| 2024 | 13.47m |
| 2025 | 14.24m |
| 2026 | 14.50m |
That is a gain of more than a metre from her 2023 best to Birmingham 2026.
The European final, though, was a different story.
What Happened in the Birmingham Final?
Saraceni entered the final after being the best qualifier, but she could not reproduce her 14.50m form.
Her best mark in the final was 13.48m, recorded with a +2.2 m/s wind. She finished 12th.
Italy still won the event.
Dariya Derkach took the European title with a personal best of 14.60m.
For Saraceni, Birmingham produced two very different results within three days: the best jump of her career in qualification, then an early exit from the final.
Both belong in the story.
The 14.50m showed what she could reach. The final showed that producing the same level repeatedly at a senior championship is another challenge altogether.
Erika Saraceni Personal Bests
Saraceni has competed in several events during her development, though triple jump is now her main discipline.
| Event | Personal Best |
|---|---|
| Triple jump outdoor | 14.50m |
| Triple jump indoor | 13.71m |
| Long jump | 5.98m |
| 60m indoor | 7.82 seconds |
World Athletics lists her 14.50m triple jump from Birmingham as her outdoor best, while her 5.98m long jump was recorded in 2022 and her 7.82 60m performance came in Bergamo in January 2024.
Major Results
| Year | Competition | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | European Youth Olympic Festival | Gold |
| 2023 | European U20 Championships | 4th |
| 2024 | World U20 Championships | Bronze |
| 2025 | Italian Indoor Championships | Gold |
| 2025 | European Team Championships | 3rd in triple jump |
| 2025 | European U20 Championships | Gold |
| 2025 | World Championships | 17th in qualification |
| 2026 | Italian Championships | Gold |
| 2026 | European Championships | 12th in final |
Her FIDAL curriculum also records three Italian absolute titles across the 2025 and 2026 seasons.
Current Club and Coaches
Saraceni is currently registered with G.S. Fiamme Azzurre, according to FIDAL’s 2026 athlete information.
Earlier in her career she competed for Bracco Atletica.
Her current FIDAL profile lists Eugenio Paolino and Aldo Maggi as her coaches. Paolino began working with her jumps in 2024, while Maggi had already played an important part in her technical development before that period.
She trains at the XXV Aprile athletics facility in Milan.
Education and Life Away From Competition
Saraceni has kept studying alongside athletics.
FIDAL’s current biography says she completed a language-focused secondary school education and is studying sports science. It also notes that she enjoys watching television series in their original language.
Reliable athletics profiles say far more about her training and competition history than about her private life.
There is no need to fill those gaps with guesses.
What Makes Her Progress Worth Watching?
The most useful way to assess Saraceni is through her distances.
13.42m.
13.47m.
14.24m.
14.50m.
Those are her season-leading personal marks from 2023 through 2026.
She has also moved through competition levels quickly: youth festival champion, world U20 medallist, European U20 champion, senior World Championships competitor and European Championships finalist.
She is still early in her senior career.
Birmingham offered a good example of where things stand. Saraceni produced a 14.50m qualifying jump good enough to lead an elite European field. Three days later, 13.48m left her 12th in the final.
That gap between peak performance and repeatability may be one of the more interesting parts of her next stage.
Final Thought
Erika Saraceni is no longer simply an athlete with promising junior results.
Her 2024 World U20 bronze established her internationally. The following season brought 14-metre jumps, a European U20 title and a senior World Championships appearance.
Then, after surgery disrupted the opening of 2026, she returned to jump 14.41m in Florence and 14.50m in Birmingham.
The Birmingham final did not go as she wanted. That should not be edited out of the picture.
At 20, Saraceni already has medals, national titles and experience at global senior championships. Her next test is less about proving she can produce one large jump. She has already done that.
The question now is how often she can reproduce it.
FAQs About Erika Saraceni
How old is Erika Saraceni?
Erika Saraceni is 20 years old as of August 2026. She was born on May 21, 2006.
Where was Erika Saraceni born?
She was born in Milan, Italy.
What event does Erika Saraceni compete in?
Her main athletics event is the triple jump.
What is Erika Saraceni’s personal best?
Her outdoor triple jump personal best is 14.50m, set in Birmingham on August 10, 2026.
Did Erika Saraceni win the European U20 Championships?
Yes. She won the women’s triple jump at the 2025 European U20 Championships in Tampere with 14.24m.
Was 14.24m a European U20 record?
No. Her 14.24m in Tampere was an Italian U20 record and a European U20 Championships record. It was not the overall European U20 record.
Did Erika Saraceni compete at the World Championships?
Yes. She competed at the senior 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, finishing 17th in triple jump qualification with 13.82m.
What club does Erika Saraceni represent?
Her current FIDAL registration lists G.S. Fiamme Azzurre.
Who coaches Erika Saraceni?
FIDAL lists Eugenio Paolino and Aldo Maggi as her coaches.
How did Erika Saraceni perform at the 2026 European Championships?
She jumped a personal best of 14.50m in qualification, leading the qualifying round. In the final, she recorded 13.48m and finished 12th.
