On a historic night for the Dutch relay running, their 4x100m men’s and women’s quartets won both their events in national records at Madrid 2025 on Saturday (28).
The Madrid 2025 European Athletics Team Championships 1st Division is being streamed live on the European Athletics website courtesy of the Eurovision Sport Platform.
In the men’s 4x100m relay, they improved on their third place managed in Silesia 2023. The quartet consisting of Nsikak Ekpo, Taymir Burnet, Xavi Mo-Ajok and Elvis Afrifa led from the early leg and performed brilliant changeovers to enter the anchor leg with a couple of metres to spare from Germany and Great Britain while Italy travelled another metre behind.
At the finish, the Dutch celebrated a national record of 37.87 to erase the previous mark set at the Doha 2019 World Championships, it was also a championships record, and a new European lead.
The tight battle for the runner-up spot went for the German squad in 38.27 ahead of Great Britain’s 38.33, their respective quartets being anchored by Lucas Ansah-Peprah and Friday’s individual 100m victor Eugene Amo Dadzie.
In the women’s 4x100m, the Dutch team struck again with a stunning victory in a championships record of 42.02.
Visser and Klaver bolster 4x100m team to victory
The quartet comprising sprint hurdler Nadine Visser, 400m specialist Lieke Klaver, Minke Bisschops and Marije van Hunenstijn also landed a national record – previous of 42.04 when taking European gold on the home soil of Amsterdam 2016 - and a European leading performance.
It was a mark previously held by the Spanish team which grabbed the win at the Goungzhou 2025 World Relays Championships.
The local team fought hard in their hunt for the victory, but the quartet of Esperanza Cladera, Jael Bestué, Paula Sevilla and Maribel Pérez had to settle for the second place, 0.09 in arrears to set a Spanish record of 42.11 – previous of 42.18 - on third leg runner, Paula Sevilla’s 28th birthday while Germany finished a distant third in 42.52.