Six individual medal winners from the 2025 SPAR European Cross Country Championships will be in action on the global stage at the World Athletics Cross Country Championships in Tallahassee, United States on Saturday (10) afternoon.
Not since 2001 has a European won a medal in the senior men’s race at the World Cross Country Championships but this year could see a reversal of fortunes as the entry-list features Spain’s Thierry Ndikumwenayo and France’s Jimmy Gressier, the gold and silver medallists in Lagoa last month.
Ndikumwenayo was the leading European finisher at the 2024 World Cross Country Championships in Belgrade (also the host city for the 2026 SPAR European Cross Country Championships) where he finished ninth while Gressier kicked to 10,000m gold at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo last summer before winning 5000m bronze.
Gressier spearheads a powerful French team which also includes 2023 European cross country champion Yann Schrub along with former European 10km record-holder Etienne Daguinos, European half marathon bronze medallist Valentin Gondouin and Fabien Palcau.
Not since 2001 - again - when France won team silver has a European nation featured on the team podium at the World Cross Country Championships but Gressier believes Les Bleus can challenge for honours as a collective on Saturday.
"My objective is to help the team win a medal at the World Cross Country Championships, even though I'm not ruling anything out individually. Just because I'm behind now doesn't mean I won't be at the front in a few weeks," he said as quoted by L'Equipe in the days after the SPAR European Cross Country Championships.
Helmed by Ndikumwenayo, the Spaniards will also be fielding a team in Tallahassee. Their team also includes Abdessamad Oukhelfen and Aaron Las Heras, who finished sixth and ninth respectively in Lagoa and helped Spain to a successful defence of their team title.
The entry-list is headed by reigning two-time world cross country champion Jacob Kiplimo from Uganda and Olympic 10,000m silver medallist Berihu Aregawi from Ethiopia.
More individual medallists from Lagoa in action
European cross country silver medallist Megan Keith is the standout name from a continental perspective in the senior women’s race which also features world 10km record-holder Agnes Ngetich from Kenya.
A European U20 and U23 cross country champion in 2021 and 2023 respectively, Keith recovered from an early fall to win her first medal as a senior at the 2025 SPAR European Cross Country Championships behind Italy’s Nadia Battocletti whose next big target is the World Athletics Indoor Championships in March.
Keith finished 52nd in her last appearance at the 2023 World Cross Country Championships but the Brit has improved considerably since, winning 10,000m bronze at the 2024 European Athletics Championships and finishing tenth over the same distance at the 2025 World Athletics Championships.
Spain is also fielding a team in the senior women’s race which features Maria Forero who capped her age-group career by winning the U23 title at the SPAR European Cross Country Championships in Lagoa last month.
Another gold medallist in action will be Belgium’s European U20 cross country champion Willem Renders in the men’s U20 race. The line-up also includes 17-year-old Alois Abraham from France who won U20 bronze in a sprint finish in Lagoa before setting a national U20 5km record of 13:38 in Barcelona on New Year’s Eve.
And two years after Great Britain won mixed relay bronze in Belgrade, there is a plausible chance of another European medal in this format in Tallahassee.
The Brits have named a strong team including returning medallists Adam Fogg and Alex Millard as have the French whose team features European indoor 1500m champion Agathe Guillemot and 2024 European 3000m steeplechase champion Alexis Miellet.
The full entry-lists can be found here.
