Adva Cohen's European Championships campaign ended in 10th place on Thursday evening, as the Israeli steeplechase record holder crossed the line at Alexander Stadium in Birmingham in 9:38.21 in the women's 3,000m steeplechase final.
The race went to Germany, with Gesa Felicitas Krause taking gold in 9:12.69 to add another continental title to a career already stacked with European medals. France's Alice Finot, the defending champion, settled for silver in 9:14.24, while Germany's Olivia Gürth completed the podium in 9:15.33.
Cohen had booked her place in the 16-woman final by finishing eighth in her heat two days earlier, clocking 9:37.15 to comfortably progress. In the final itself she was unable to find the closing kick that has carried her to faster times this season, drifting back through the field over the closing laps of hurdles and water jumps.
The result sits below Cohen's personal best of 9:19.90, the Israeli record she set at last year's World Championships in Tokyo — a mark that remains the benchmark for Israeli women's distance running.
It is also a step back from her two previous European finals. Cohen finished fifth in Berlin in 2018, still her best continental placing, and eighth in Munich in 2022. A 10th-place finish in Birmingham, while respectable against a strong European field, does not match that trajectory.
At 30, Cohen remains Israel's leading steeplechaser and one of the country's most consistent championship performers, with three World Championships and an Olympic appearance in Tokyo already behind her. Thursday's run in Birmingham adds another data point to a season in which she has already broken her own Israeli record once, but it ends her 2026 European campaign without the medal-contending finish some had hoped for after her form over the summer.
