Twice European champion outdoors, Jessica Schilder is striving to bring that proven gold-medal form indoors in from of her home crowd at the Apeldoorn 2025 European Athletics Indoor Championships, which will be streamed live on the European Athletics website 6-9 March.
The Dutch athlete, who was speaking at the Official Press Conference on Wednesday (5) at the Apeldoorn Omnisport Arena has twice triumphed in the women’s shot put at the European Athletics Championships in Munich 2022 and Roma 2024. But she placed fifth at the last two European Indoor Championships in Torun 2021 and Istanbul 2023.
“Indoors is not really my favourite,” she admits. “I am more of an outdoor person, but I think it helps that we are at home. I know the feeling. I know the circle. I know the atmosphere. I might have to change it up a little bit this time indoors and we will see where it goes.
“It’s really nice to have a competition close to home. I have a lot of family and lot of friends coming and I can feel the love. The qualification is always very difficult for everybody, and everything can happen in the finals.”
Dutch-born Azu feeling at home
Another athlete hoping to benefit from familiar surroundings is men’s 60m contender Jeremiah Azu. The 23-year-old will be going for gold for Great Britain, but with close ties to the Netherlands, he is feeling right at home.
“I was born in Rotterdam,” he said. “I lived here until I was three, so this is like a semi home championships for me.
“I’ve got a lot of family here. I’ve got family in Breda, got family in Amsterdam and in Rotterdam still. We moved to Cardiff when I was three, but every summer until COVID, we came here every summer for the whole of the six weeks holiday.
“So, I’ve got a huge attachment to the Netherlands. It’s great to be here. All my childhood memories are from here in the summer, coming to see my cousins and spending so much time with them.”
The Munich 2022 100m bronze medallist is yet to win a major senior individual title and should he succeed, it will be another life-changing experience for the sprinter in quick succession.
“I became a father last week,” he said. “I had to leave my wife and my son at home to come out here and do some business. It’s part of the job unfortunately. A lot of travelling involved, but I am here now and have got to focus on the job in hand.”
Joseph ready for fight
Meanwhile, Switzerland’s Jason Joseph is among several defending champions from Istanbul 2023 in Apeldoorn and is under no illusions of the task ahead.
Ranked second among the entries for the men’s 60m hurdles, he has the likes of European leader Poland’s Jakub Szymanski and Italy's 110m hurdles gold medallist Lorenzo Simonelli from Roma 2024 among a deep field. Joseph is highly conscious of the current standard of the event.
“I’m seeing a lot of these fellas running fast times, doing great,” he said. “All of them looking like they want to take my title from me and I’m not just ready to give it away that easy. It’s going to be a tough battle. I’m looking forward to it. It’s going to be a fight regardless.
“People have been running 7.4, 7.3 in their second races and I am like running 7.7. I’m like ‘Calm down, I’m trying to find my groove. No rush.’ So, that was pretty crazy, so I am pretty happy I was able to run 7.45 last week.”
Chris Broadbent for European Athletics