Innsbruck will host the IBSF European Championships in 2018 ©IBSF

The International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation (IBSF) has announced that the 2018 European Championships will take place in Innsbruck.

The event will be held between December 15 and 17 of this year at the Olympic Sliding Centre in the Austrian city.

Winners will be decided using a "race-in-race" format as the event will also double as an IBSF World Cup.

As such, the top European performers in each of the five disciplines will become continental champions even if they do not win the World Cup event.

Champions will also head into the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics in February as the European gold medallists.

Martin Dukurs is the reigning men's skeleton European champion ©Getty Images
Martin Dukurs is the reigning men's skeleton European champion ©Getty Images

The 2017 European Championships took place in January in Winterberg in Germany, also using a race-in-race system during a World Cup event.

Germany won all three bobsleigh gold medals, with Francesco Friedrich and Martin Grothkopp taking the two-man title and Johannes Lochner piloting the four-man champions.

Mariama Jamanka and Annika Drazek won the two-woman event.

Martins Dukurs of Latvia won the men's skeleton title while the women's equivalent went to Germany's Jacqueline Lölling.