Organizers of the European championships have defended ticket prices in Birmingham after British sprinter Amy Hunt won the 100-meter final at a nearly half-empty Alexander Stadium.
One of Olympic champion Keely Hodgkinson's coaches was among those questioning prices and raising concerns about parking and the cost of food — with bratwurst hot dogs going for 15 pounds ($20).
The category A seats for Monday night's session — which included Jakob Ingebrigtsen's victory in the 5,000 meters and Hunt's gold — cost 150 pounds ($202). The cheapest adult ticket was 26 pounds ($35).
Official attendance Monday night was 13,623, though journalists on hand said the actual figure seemed lower, in a stadium with capacity at 23,000.
“Hearing from fans re high ticket prices, parking issues & even people not knowing it was taking place,” Jenny Meadows, a coach of Hodgkinson, wrote on social media.
Commentator Sonja McLaughlan added: “Actually a bit shocked at type of prices being charged. It’s a shame for the athletes who deserve better. The sport has this precious window without football, free to air television exposure and it looks flat with such a sparse crowd.”
The morning sessions — during which the athletes compete in qualifying rounds — offer lower prices. Ticket prices for Tuesday's and Wednesday's evening sessions top out at 110 pounds ($148), before reverting to the higher prices Thursday through Sunday.
Organizers said Tuesday that more than 50% of tickets were priced at 30 pounds ($40) and lower.
“Birmingham 2026 is delighted with ticket sales for the championships, which have far surpassed our targets,” they said in a statement. “Friday, Saturday and Sunday evening sessions are approaching sell-out, with several other sessions close to capacity.”
The widely anticipated women's 800-meter final is Friday night and is expected to feature Hodgkinson, Audrey Werro and Femke Broeders-Bol.
Swedish pole vaulter Armand “Mondo” Duplantis will be a highlight of the final session Sunday night. On Friday morning, children's tickets are available at reduced costs to see Duplantis in qualifying.
“There are still opportunities to be part of the championships at incredibly good value, including the ‘Mondo’ £6.31 children’s ticket for Friday morning — named in honor of his world record — while a family of four can attend for as little as £30,” organizers said.
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Lithuania's Martynas Alekna makes an attempt in the men's discus throw qualifying at the European Athletics Championships in Birmingham, England, Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)
Britain's Amy Hunt celebrates as she wins the gold in the women's 100 meters final at the European Athletics Championships in Birmingham, England, Monday, Aug. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)
Some empty seats in the stands just ahead of the evening session on day two at the European Athletics Championships in Birmingham, England, Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Tennessee, Alabama and Oklahoma plan to execute inmates Thursday in what would be the first time in nearly 16 years that three people are put to death on the same day in the United States.
The executions come as a small number of states, including the three with scheduled lethal injections Thursday, drive execution numbers in the United States.
“You look at the country as a whole, you’ve just got this little pocket of five or six states that are using the death penalty, executing people, and a small number of states that are still imposing new death sentences,” said Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. Maher said it is highly unusual to have three executions on one day, although it is largely a scheduling coincidence.
Eleven states executed a total of 47 people in 2025, the highest number since 2009. Florida accounted for most of the surge with 19 executions. Alabama, South Carolina and Texas each carried out five. Tennessee carried out three. Oklahoma, Mississippi, Arizona and Indiana each carried out two. Louisiana and Missouri each carried out one execution.
The 19 executions so far in 2026 have occurred in four states. Florida, which again leads the country, executed two inmates on the same day in July.
The last time three executions were held on the same day was Jan. 7, 2010, when Louisiana, Ohio and Texas put inmates to death. Three executions were scheduled on the same day in 2018, but only one went forward after a Texas man was granted a reprieve and prison officials in Alabama had problems with the IV line.
Tennessee plans to execute Anthony Darrell Hines three months after the attempted lethal injection of another inmate was called off because of problems inserting an IV. The aborted execution put a spotlight on issues states have sometimes had in establishing IV lines during lethal injections.
“All eyes really are on Tennessee at this moment because of the problem that happened,” Maher said.
During the attempted execution of Tony Carruthers in May, the IV team established a primary line right away but then worked for more than an hour trying to insert a required backup line. The execution was ultimately called off and Carruthers was given a one-year reprieve.
Hines, 66, has seized on the problems with the previous execution, saying his health issues — including two strokes that left him partially paralyzed — increase the risk of difficulties at his execution. He has unsuccessfully asked the governor and courts to intervene, claiming the doctor who oversaw that execution was unqualified and is likely to botch his execution, as well.
Gov. Bill Lee has declined to take any action on Hines’ requests, and last week the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled against a stay of his execution. The state has declined to say whether the same doctor will preside over the upcoming execution, but the court noted that Hines had not proved that doctor was unqualified.
Hines was convicted of stabbing Catherine Jean Jenkins to death in 1985 while the 54-year-old was working as a motel maid in Kingston Springs. He was sentenced to death in 1986, won an appeal for a new sentencing hearing, and was again sentenced to death in 1989.
Alabama is scheduled to execute Jeremy Williams, 42, by lethal injection for the 2021 rape and murder of a 5-year-old Georgia girl.
Williams, who pleaded guilty to killing Kamarie Holland, has asked for his death sentence to be carried out.
Prosecutors said Williams raped and strangled Holland after offering her mother $2,500 for the child to perform oral sex on him. Williams filmed his attack on the girl and kept her body to continue to abuse, prosecutors said.
In 2022, Williams also was charged with the 2005 death of his infant daughter in Alaska.
“This man left a trail of destruction of children,” Russell County District Attorney Richard Chancey said.
About 10% of executed inmates are so-called volunteers who drop appeals, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, but most of those have been on death row longer. The time between Williams’ 2024 conviction and his scheduled lethal injection is unusually brief, Maher said.
It will be Alabama’s first execution of the year if it goes forward. A nitrogen gas execution was halted in June after a federal judge ruled the method unconstitutional.
Oklahoma is scheduled to execute Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez, 70, for the 2003 murder of his girlfriend.
If the lethal injection goes forward, he will be the third person executed in Oklahoma this year.
Prosecutors said Olimpia Fisher, 43, had been making plans to leave Cuesta-Rodriguez when he shot her in one eye and then waited about eight minutes as she screamed for help before firing the fatal shot into her other eye.
Oklahoma’s Pardon and Parole Board voted 3-1 last month against recommending clemency for Cuesta-Rodriguez. Cuesta-Rodriguez’s attorneys had asked the board to recommend he serve life in prison without parole, saying he had a difficult childhood and suffered from brain damage, post-traumatic stress disorder and major depression with psychotic episodes.
But Cuesta-Rodriguez told the board that he did not want clemency. He said he wanted Fisher’s two daughters to know that he regretted what happened.
“I can’t have been in my right mind to have done something so horrific,” he said through a Spanish-language translator. “I have not been able to find any sense in all this.”
Stengle contributed to this report from Dallas. Loller contributed to this report from Nashville.
This Aug. 18, 2025, photo provided by the Oklahoma Department of Corrections shows Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez, who was sentenced to death for the 2003 fatal shooting of his girlfriend. (Oklahoma Department of Corrections via AP)
This undated photo, courtesy of the Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC), shows death row inmate Anthony Darrell Hines at an unknown location in Tennessee. (TDOC Communications via AP)
FILE - This Oct. 9, 2014, file photo shows the gurney in the the execution chamber at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, Okla. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)
