The Career

The 2026 season opens with a clear signal: three times 8.14 in the indoor 60m hurdles, with the first time clocked on January 16 in Spokane, placing her fifth in UCLA history. Something is changing. Outdoors, on May 3 in the USC-UCLA dual meet, she breaks the 13-second barrier for the first time in her career with 12.98. Then the turning point: in Fayetteville, Arkansas, on May 29 she runs 12.80 — a new Italian U23 record and the European standard for Birmingham 2026. Two days later she improves again with 12.79. Eugene, June 11. Hayward Field, the most legendary track in American athletics. In the NCAA semifinal, she stops the clock at 12.74 with a +1.5 wind — Italian U23 record, second-fastest Italian performance of all time, just five hundredths from Giada Carmassi's national record. On June 13 she lines up for the NCAA final: the race is dramatic, but the result is historic. Silver — one of the most prestigious results ever achieved by an Italian athlete on the American collegiate circuit. The return to Italy does not slow her down. On June 20 in Rieti, at the Club Championships Gold Final, she wins the 100m hurdles in 12.94. On July 11 in Molfetta she claims the Italian U23 title. On July 26 in Florence, at the Stadio Luigi Ridolfi, at the Italian Senior Championships she runs 12.74 with zero wind — the same time as Eugene, but this time without any wind assistance. Italian Senior Champion for the first time in her career. August brings the first international appointments in the Italian national jersey. At the European Championships in Birmingham she finishes ninth, missing the final by a single hundredth of a second — an experience that leaves its mark. On August 31 in Taranto, at the Mediterranean Games, she returns to the top of the podium: gold in the 100m hurdles in 12.75 into a headwind, her first international title, with an Italian one-two completed by Elena Carraro. A season that has permanently changed her place in the history of Italian athletics.

Her first full year on the American collegiate circuit marked her definitive transition into maturity. She dedicatedly balanced her academic responsibilities—earning a spot on the UCLA Athletic Director’s Honor Roll—with the grueling pace of US college track. Following a solid indoor debut in Spokane at 8.29, her indoor campaign saw her drop her 60m hurdles time to a stellar 8.14 in Albuquerque. The outdoor season brought continuous progression, culminating in an outstanding 13.08 at the NCAA Regionals in College Station, the fastest time ever for an Italian hurdler under the age of twenty. At the NCAA Outdoor Championships in Eugene, she earned Second Team All-America honors, placing 16th overall. Over the summer, she wore the blue jersey at the European Athletics U23 Championships in Bergen, Norway, where she narrowly missed out on a historic continental final. This extraordinary season was crowned domestically by claiming the Italian U23 national title in Grosseto alongside a brilliant third-place finish at the Senior National Championships in Caorle.

2024 marked her definitive breakthrough at the youth level. After capturing her seventh consecutive Italian U20 national title in Rieti, she wore the blue jersey at the World Athletics U20 Championships in Lima, Peru. On the world stage, she proved her caliber by reaching the semifinals, where she finished a strong fifth in her heat with a time of 13.67, missing out on the final by just a few hundredths of a second. This was her final major international championship before a life-changing move: in the fall, she relocated to Los Angeles to begin her collegiate and athletic career at UCLA. Training under the American coaching staff while maintaining her domestic affiliation with Bracco Atletica, she laid the groundwork for her next chronological leap.

This was the year of her full establishment in the U20 ranks. In February, she claimed the Italian U20 indoor title in the 60m hurdles in Ancona. During the summer, she confidently captured the Italian U20 100m hurdles title in Grosseto, dropping her time to 13.54. The climax of her season took her back to Jerusalem for the European U20 Championships, where she had experienced the excitement of the European U18 Championships just the year before: in the heats, she clocked a superb, wind-aided 13.22, and went on to secure a brilliant fourth place in the final with 13.36, cementing her status among Europe's elite youth hurdlers.

Her national successes quickly open the doors of the Italian youth national team. She wins the Italian U18 Championships in Milan in the 100m hurdles (76cm barriers). But it is the summer that marks the turning point of the season: at the European U18 Championships in Jerusalem, Celeste arrives as one of the contenders. In the heats she runs an exceptional wind-assisted 13.31, demolishing her personal best, and in the final she finishes fourth with 13.37 — a result of great substance that definitively establishes her at continental level.

Her move to Bracco Atletica in Milan marked a decisive leap in quality. Under her new coaching staff, Celeste captured two national podiums during the year: the silver medal in the 60m hurdles at the Italian U18 Indoor Championships in Ancona, and the gold medal in the 100m hurdles at the Italian U18 Outdoor Championships in Rieti. Her chronological progression remained steady, paving a clear path toward the European season.

Born in Desio on December 26, 2005, Celeste Polzonetti took her first steps on the athletics tracks of her hometown, competing for Atletica Desio in the youth ranks. It was on the tracks of Brianza that she discovered her natural aptitude for sprint hurdling, meeting her first barriers with steady technical progression. Her talent emerged immediately, and in Forlì she claimed the Italian U16 national title in the 80m hurdles: the first of a long series of national golds. She was fourteen years old.