Regardless of other issues that are debated about the state of distance running on the continent, it can't be denied that the sport embraces the whole of Europe.
All points of the compass were covered north, south, east and west. In total, 12 countries climbed the medal podium on Dublin's Santry Demesne.
The races were watched by an estimated crowd of close to 7000 who enthusiastically lined both sides of the superbly designed course, which drew plaudits from athletes and officials alike for being testing - while being a relatively flat circuit, the going was soft after recent rain and, as the day progressed, the weather remained dry but increasingly chilly - without being too severe and hindering fluent running.
Perhaps the day belonged on the course, if it belonged to any one individual country, to Great Britain.
After the shortest journey, apart from the hosts, of any of the 30 nations competing in Dublin, the British squad notched up 12 medals out of the 36 on offer. Of course, they could only get one set of team medals in any particular category but proceded to do so in each of the six races.
The British total has never been beaten in the 16 editions of the SPAR European Cross Country Championships, only equalled by themselves 12 months ago in Brussels.
Star turn for Britain, their only individual gold medallist, was Hayley Yelling. The 35-year-old mathematics teacher regained the title she won in 2004 on her 12th appearance at the Championships and barely two months after deciding to come out of international retirements.
'I can't believe it, I feel great. I'm in shock. I just wanted to go out hard, because I know that's how I race better, to just go out and hang on for as long as possible. I expected them to all come past me, but luckily they didn't,' said the stunned and delighted Yelling, who lead almost from gun-to-tape.
'I think I was running scared (at the end). I thought that with two laps to go they would come back but I didn't know where they were or how far behind. I thought they might have a quick last lap. I had no expectation at all, I just wanted to enjoy it. I was thinking about the team really.
'I've been back doing training sessions for about a month. I might do a few more races and see how I'm doing but I'm not looking as far as the world cross, or anything else.'
If Yelling was an old star regaining her lustre, France's Noureddine Smail and Spain's Alemayehu Bezabeh are new stars in the making.
The respective winners of the men's U23 and senior races helped their countries to second and third in the 2009 overall medal table. France got five medals in total while Spain acquired four.
The geographic spread of the winners is not the only proof that athletics, and the athletes themselves, are in great shape right across Europe.
In both the men's and women's junior events five of the top ten in Dublin will still be eligible to run in the same category next year, ensuring that the 2010 races will be every bit as exciting and competitive as they were this year in Dublin.
A few, like Russia's Gulshat Fazlitdinova, the 17-year-old junior women's silver medallist, or Great Britain's 16-year-old Richard Goodman, fifth in the junior men's race and a team competition gold medallist, have another year at least beyond 2010 in which to make their mark and add to their medal collection.
The stage is now set for Europe's top runners to take on the rest of world at a series of major races in the next few months - there are three more European Athletics Cross Country Permit meetings being held in January - as the Cross Country season builds up to a second climax at the IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland on March 28.
'It would be a great feeling if I could also win a medal in Poland as I'm so happy that I could win a European Cross Country title. Today I'm very proud, proud for myself, proud to be Spanish, especially as we also won the senior men's team title as well, and proud to be a European. To win a world medal on European soil is my next big target,' said Bezabeh, after his impressive winning run in Dublin.
Further into the future, the 2010 edition of the SPAR European Cross Country Championship will be held in the Algarve resort of Albufeira, on the southern coast of Portugal, on December 12 next year. In 2011, the Championships return to the Slovenian city of Velenje which also staged the 1999 event.