The second day of the 171st European Athletics Council meeting, held in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius, saw the 2025 SPAR European Cross Country Championships awarded to Lagoa, Portugal on Thursday (19).
The city, located in Portugal’s Algarve region on the Atlantic coast, will become the fourth Portuguese venue for the event after Oeiras in 1997, Albufeira in 2010 and Lisbon in 2019.
Signatories to the official host city contract in Vilnius were Portuguese federation – Federação Portuguesa de Atletismo – President Jorge Vieira, Mayor of Lagoa Luís Encarnação and European Athletics President Dobromir Karamarinov and European Athletics CEO Christian Milz.
The 2023 SPAR European Cross Country Championships will be held in Brussels, Belgium on 10 December while the 2024 edition will be staged in Antalya, Türkiye on 8 December 2024.
The Council also was given a presentation by the Royal Dutch Athletics Federation, led by President Jan Markink and General Secretary Pieke de Zwart, as part of their involvement in the Focus Federation Programme.
The federation's presentation focused on their strategic goals through to 2028.
- To strengthen providers of athletics
- To connect new target groups
- To optimise our (elite) competitions
- To experience success of our elite athletes
- To connect with and build on our community
Markink and de Zwart also reflected on the fact that 2023 had been one of the most successful years in recent history for Dutch athletics in terms of medals at major championships, and the road it took to reach this level of achievement, and also the preparations and expectations for the Apeldoorn 2025 European Athletics Indoor Championships.
The Focus Federation Programme was inaugurated in 2017 and designed to enhance the transparency, communications and increase understanding between European Athletics and its Member Federations.
The programme is offered to all federations that are currently not represented on the Council.