Reigning European champions Nadia Battocletti and Yemaneberhan Crippa are the star names on Italy’s team for the SPAR European Cross Country Championships on 8 December.
Battocletti won a 5000/10,000m double at the Roma 2024 European Athletics Championships while Crippa won half marathon gold, leading Italy to the team title on home soil.
Both athletes have a proven record at the SPAR European Cross Country Championships as well. Battocletti has won the U20 and U23 races twice before stepping up to win senior silver behind Norway’s Karoline Bjerkeli Grøvdal on her debut in Brussels last year.
And if the Olympic 10,000m silver medallist wins gold in Antalya, she will be the first female athlete to win individual titles in all three age-groups in SPAR European Cross Country Championships history as well as the first Italian to win the senior women’s race.
Crippa, who is making his 12th successive appearances at these championships, is a two-time U20 champion. He also won senior senior in 2019 and led Italy to team silver on home soil at the 2022 SPAR European Cross Country Championships in Turin.
The Italians took a memorable victory in the mixed relay two years ago and they will be fielding a team which features European 1500m bronze medallist Pietro Arese - who ran the first leg of their triumphant team in 2022 - and Sintayehu Vissa who broke Gabriela Dorio’s venerable Italian 1500m record with 3:58.11 at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
The full Italian team can be found here.