European champion Bruno Hortelano has announced his retirement from athletics

Amsterdam 2016 European 200m champion Bruno Hortelano has announced his retirement from athletics at the age of 33.

“To those who have followed my athletics career, thank you! After 15 years in international sport, I am hanging up my shoes. I am retiring”, wrote Bruno Hortelano in his Instagram account. “I started in 2010, representing Spain at the World Junior Championships, and since then I have embarked on a personal journey in search of speed, which has allowed me to travel and see the world for a decade and a half. It also allowed me to embark on a much more meaningful journey, an introspective one, to get to know myself better, in all its beauty and all its pain. My career has seen many successes, each of which motivated me to keep fighting, and also many defeats, from which I tried to learn everything I could to improve”, added he.

Bruno Hortelano’s star moment came at the 2016 European Athletics Championships in Amsterdam, when he won gold in the 200m after home favorite Churandy Martina was disqualified for a rule violation. In doing so, Bruno Hortelano became the first Spaniard to win a European sprint title.

Just weeks after competing at the Rio 2016 Olympics, where he failed to qualify for the 200m final, Bruno Hortelano suffered a serious car accident that broke bones and tendons in his right hand.

Bruno Hortelano made an inspiring comeback in 2018, setting Spanish records in the 200m (20.04 sec) and 400m (44.69 sec), which stand alongside his Spanish records in the 100m (10.06 sec) and 4x100m (38.46 sec). All four records still remain in the Spanish record books, seven years later.

And while Bruno Hortelano didn’t add to his individual medal tally, he was a key part of Spain’s improving men’s 4x400m team, winning bronze at the 2018 European Athletics Championships and silver at the 2022 World Indoor Athletics Championships.