The 8th European Athletics Championships were held from 30 August to 4 September 1966 in the Nép Stadium in Budapest, Hungary. Contemporaneous reports on the event were given in the Glasgow Herald. A new IAAF ruling was applied for the first time making gender verification for female events mandatory. As a consequence, all women competitors were forced to have a sex check. Several of the greatest women athletes missed this year's championships, among them world record holders Iolanda Balaș (high jump) from Romania, as well as Tamara Press (shot put) and Tatyana Shchelkanova (long jump), both from the Soviet Union.