European Athletics is delighted to announce that the first ever edition of the European Running Championships will take place in Leuven and Brussels on 12-13 April 2025, with the masses joining the elites for a festival of running on the streets of Belgium.
The inaugural edition will see road races take centre stage at a standalone European Championships, featuring three races over two days: 10K, half marathon and marathon. Europe’s top distance runners will race alongside the masses, bringing the stars of the sport and their fans closer than ever before.
The marathon course will run from Brussels to Leuven, starting in the heart of the Belgian capital before reaching the finish in the historic heart of Leuven.
The European marathon champion had previously been crowned at the European Championships, but now the classic distance, and its finest exponents, will take the spotlight at their very own festival of running, with medals awarded for individual and team honours at all three distances. Mass-race participants can also compete for medals in brand-new ‘country ranking’ competition.
“The European Running Championships symbolises my vision of a sport that really is for everyone,” said European Athletics President Dobromir Karamarinov. “Young and old, male and female, fast and slow, big and small, elite and amateur will all compete together and simultaneously in mass marathon, half marathon and 10km races, with global and national ranking places on offer.”
Karamarinov added: “For too long, athletics has been seen as a rarefied activity, the preserve of only the super-fit and the super-gifted. All children, and a growing number of adults across our continent, take part in athletics, in the form of recreational running, every day. Yet many of them do not think of themselves as athletes. I am determined to bridge this gap.”
European Athletics CEO Christian Milz said: "This will be a unique championships as every runner will be an athlete and every athlete can be a champion. It gives everyone in our sport the chance to experience that unique championships feeling. Welcome to the European Running Championships.”
A delegation from the Local Organising Committee (LOC) was also on-site for the historic inaugural announcement, including the President of the Royal Belgian Athletics Federation Gery Follens, Head of Marathons at Golazo Thomas Huyberechts and Geertrui Vanloo from the City of Leuven who presented their successful bid to the European Athletics Council.
(L-R) European Athletics CEO Christian Milz, General Director of the City of Leuven Geertrui Vanloo, European Athletics President Dobromir Karamarinov, Royal Belgian Athletics Federation President Gery Follens and Head of Marathons at Golazo Thomas Huyberechts at the 2023 European Athletics Council Meeting in Silesia