– David Inderlied/dpa – Archive
MADRID 1 Ene. (EUROPA PRESS) –
2026 has already started and will bring a wide and varied sports calendar, competitions that return this season, although the countdown from January 1 points to the month of June, when the Men’s Soccer World Cup will take place in North America.
2026, which will reveal the champion of the men’s Africa Cup of football on January 15, will begin and end with handball, two male and female European Championships that will take place from January 15 to February 1 in Denmark, Sweden and Norway for the ‘Hispanics’; and between December 3 and 20, jointly in Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Türkiye and the Czech Republic for the ‘Guerreras’.
Furthermore, in a loaded 2026 premiere, the European men’s water polo tournament, with the Spanish team as defending champions, will be held in Belgrade from January 10 to 25. At the end of the month, it will be the turn of the continental women’s water polo tournament, also with Spain as the current champion, in Funchal (Portugal).
Still in the first month of the year, 2026 will continue its initial fireworks with the European Men’s Futsal Championship, an electric and highly technical sport that fails to be Olympic. Spain, seven-time champions, will try to regain the throne ten years later from January 21 in Latvia, Lithuania and Slovenia.
One of the big events of the year will begin on February 6: the Milan-Cortina d’Ampezzo Winter Olympic Games that will be held until the 22nd. The Winter Paralympic Games will be a month later, from March 6 to 15.
On the other hand, linking three consecutive editions for the first time, this year there will once again be the Indoor World Athletics Championships in Torun (Poland) on the weekend of March 20. Although it also spans three years of competition, the European Badminton Championship will also be held in 2026, from April 6 to 12, with the special ingredient that it will be in Huelva, the motivation of Carolina Marín.
Already starting the summer, in June a taekwondo European Championship arrives in Nuremberg (Germany), although nothing can overshadow the men’s soccer World Cup in those months of June and July. The big event of 2026, which will take place in the United States, Mexico and Canada from June 11 to July 19. At the end of March the ‘playoffs’ will be held to find out the last selections.
This year will also be important for women’s football, since FIFA celebrates its first edition of the Club World Cup, between January 28 and February 1 and with ASFAR, Arsenal, Gotham and Corinthians as contenders for the title that will be decided in London. At the end of July, Spain will seek to continue standing out in another swimming European Championship, this year in Paris.
Meanwhile, in August, from the 10th to the 16th, the king of sports, athletics, will have its showcase in Birmingham (United Kingdom) with the European Outdoor Championships. The second half of August will host the men’s and women’s field hockey World Cups in the Netherlands and Belgium. Between August and September there will be the women’s volleyball European Championship, the men’s will be in September.
From September 11 to 13, the Formula 1 World Championship will land in Madrid, the Spanish Grand Prix with the new ‘MADRING’ urban circuit, an event scheduled for the 2026 calendar. In the finishing line of the season, a roller hockey World Cup will take place in Asunción (Paraguay), the first two weeks of October and the year, as it began, will end with the handball European Championship.
