European indoor champion Agathe Guillemot gave France maximum points in the women’s 1500m at Madrid 2025 on Sunday (29).
The Madrid 2025 European Athletics Team Championships 1st Division is live streamed on the European Athletics website courtesy of the Eurovision Sport Platform.
The 25-year-old lived up to the expectations as she was the quickest entrant. Held under extreme weather conditions of 38º C, the race opened at a pedestrian pace, the first 400m being covered in 1:12.43 with Poland’s Klaudia Kazimierska at the helm and Guillemot plus Italy’s Marta Zenoni closest to her.
Shortly afterwards, it was Sweden’s Vera Sjöberg who moved to the front to inject a brisker cadence to reach the 800m mark in 2:18.26.
By the bell Portugal’s Salome Afonso and Guillemot led and the French athlete made her move on the backstraight trying to break away from the Portugese runner, who also competed on Saturday in the 800m.
Afonso covered Guillemot’s change of speed and even tried unsuccessfully to overtake the French before the last bend, the Portuguese being forced to run the last bend on the outside virtually even with Guillemot.
The closing 100m became a thriller as the French was never headed by Afonso, who never gave up and pushed her rival until the finish line. Guillemot finally prevailing in 4:08.72 following a brisk 45.54 closing 300m for Afonso’s 4:09.01 while Great Britain’s fast finishing Revee Walcott-Nolan finished third 0.15 behind Alfonso.
Nadar takes men's 1500m in duel with Nillessen
European indoor 1500m bronze medallist Isaac Nader was a convincing winner in the men’s event. The race kicked-off at a very slow pace and soon Sweden’s Emil Danielsson grew impatient to take the lead and accelerate the speed; even so the opening 400m were covered in 1:02.27.
Shortly before the 800m mark, which was reached in 2:03.17 the hot favourites – sub 3:30 men - Nader and Stefan Nillessen took the lead and the rhythm became increasingly faster as the clock read 3:00.78 by the 1200m mark.
From then on, it was a two-horse battle as Nillessen entered the last 200m at the helm, but Nader ran just inches behind him and he tried to overtake the Dutch runner over the last bend.
Nillessen managed to enter the closing 100m in the lead but, despite having to run wide the last bend, the Spain-based Nader found another gear in the home straight to romp home clearly.
He crossed the finish in 3:39.08, with second placed Nillessen clocking 3:39.97, courtesy of a brisk 38.30 in the closing 300m. Nillessen held off the late challenge of Poland’s Filip Rak, who was 0.17 behind.