Friday (5) marks the 100 day countdown to the 2025 SPAR European Cross Country Championships which takes place in Lagoa in the south of Portugal on 14 December.
This will be the 31st edition of the SPAR European Cross Country Championships and the fourth time the event will be held on Portuguese soil.
From Oeiras to Lagoa…
The SPAR European Cross Country Championships came to Portugal for the first time in Oeiras in 1997.
On that day, orienteering specialist Carsten Jorgensen from Denmark caused an upset with victory in the senior men’s race although a Portuguese team featuring 1987 world 5000m silver medallist Domingos Castro did come away with the team title in the men’s race for the third time.
In the women’s race, Joalsiae Llado won the title by 13 seconds and led France to the team title. Almost three decades later, this remains the first and only time that France has come away with the senior women’s team title.
The 1997 SPAR European Cross Country Championships was also significant as U20 races were added to the programme as official medal events for the first time. The inaugural individual U20 champions were Gert-Jan Liefers from the Netherlands and Yugoslavia's Sonja Stolic.
Some 13 years later, the SPAR European Cross Country Championships returned to Portuguese soil in Albufeira. Ukraine’s Sergiy Lebid extended his record for most victories in the senior men’s race by winning his ninth individual title at the age of 35 while Jessica Augusto won individual and team gold on home soil in the senior women’s race.
At the 2019 SPAR European Cross Country Championships in Lisbon, there was a sense of deja vu with five of the six individual winners retaining their titles. Among the repeat winners were Jakob Ingebrigtsen who won his fourth successive title in the men’s U20 race, a feat that was replicated by Türkiye’s Yasemin Can who also won a record fourth senior women’s title.
Italy’s Nadia Battocletti also defended her title in the U20 women’s race while France’s Jimmy Gressier and Denmark’s Anna Emilie Møller both retained their titles in the U23 race.
From Guerra to Machado…
Any brief history of Portuguese success at the SPAR European Cross Country Championships cannot fail to mention Paulo Guerra, the inaugural champion in Alnwick 1994 who went on to win four individual titles in the senior men’s race.
The standout Portuguese woman at this championships is Jessica Augusto who won the U20 title in 2000 before graduating to senior gold on home soil in Albufeira in 2010, leading Portugal to their fourth team title from the last five editions of the SPAR European Cross Country Championships.
Portuguese success in recent editions of the SPAR European Cross Country Championships hasn’t been quite so forthcoming. The last Portuguese medal dates back to the 2021 edition in Dublin where Mariana Machado won individual bronze in a very competitive U23 race, just behind Italy’s Nadia Battocletti and Slovenia’s Klara Lukan.
But what bodes well is the hosts did win three medals the last time Portugal staged the SPAR European Cross Country Championships in Lisbon 2019. Machado won bronze in the U20 race - behind Battocletti and Lukan again - while the senior women’s and men’s U20 teams both won bronze medals.
The host’s best chance of a medal at the 2025 SPAR European Cross Country Championships might come in the mixed relay, particularly if Salome Afonso and Isaac Nader make themselves available for selection.
Afonso won medals in both the women’s 1500m and 3000m at the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Apeldoorn while Nader also won silver behind Jakob Ingebrigten in the men’s 1500m.