Norwegian dynamo Jakob Ingebrigtsen will be seeking a third successive 1500/3000m double at the Apeldoorn 2025 European Athletics Indoor Championships from 6-9 March.
And the odds are heavily in Ingebrigtsen’s favour, especially after the 24-year-old two-time former European Athlete of the Year opened his season in record-breaking form in Lievin, shattering Yared Nuguse’s fleeting world indoor mile record of 3:46.43 with 3:45.14 and breaking his world indoor 1500m record en route with 3:29.63.
If Ingebrigtsen completes the double, he will also make championship history by matching Soviet sprinter Valeriy Borzov’s record of seven gold medals, who currently holds the accolade of having the most titles won by a male athlete in European Athletics Indoor Championships history but from an era when the championships were held annually.
As well as his 1500/3000m doubles in 2021 and 2023, Ingebrigtsen also won the 3000m gold at the age of 18 at the 2019 European Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow to become the youngest ever male gold medallist in championship history.
Ingebrigtsen begins his quest in the 1500m with the heats due to take place on the first evening session of the championships on 6 March.
This event could prove to be a re-run of the final in Istanbul two years ago with Great Britain’s Neil Gourley and France’s Azeddine Habz - the silver and bronze medallists respectively - also featuring on the entry list.
World class line-up in the 3000m
But if Ingebrigtsen is to face a meaningful challenge at these championships, it is likely to come in the 3000m. Ingebrigtsen will face Dutch prodigy Niels Laros as well as Great Britain’s European 5000m silver medallist George Mills, who clocked a national record 7:27.92 earlier this winter in Val-de-Reuil to move to second on the European all-time list.
Laros also impressed a few weeks later by winning in Lievin, defeating a strong field replete with East African opposition and setting an outright Dutch 3000m record of 7:29.49 in his first race since winning the U20 title at the SPAR European Cross Country Championships last December.
Unlike Ingebrigtsen, neither Mills nor Laros will be doubling up in Apeldoorn but no sort of racing schedule seems to fatigue the legs of the Norwegian ironman who has won 1500/5000m doubles at the last three European Athletics Championships along with one Olympic and two world 5000m titles, each time off the back of three rounds in the 1500m.
Jakob will be joined on the team by his older brother Filip, the 2016 European outdoor 1500m champion and 2018 European cross country champion. Interestingly, Filip won both of those titles on Dutch soil in Amsterdam and Tilburg respectively. However, world 1500m bronze medallist Narve Gilje Nordas is a late withdrawal from the Norwegian team due to illness.
In one of the strongest fields of the championships, the entry list also features Ireland’s Andrew Coscoran (7:30.75) and France’s Azeddine Habz (7:31.50) - the fourth and fifth fastest Europeans in history indoors courtesy of recently set lifetime bests - along with Sweden’s European 10km record-holder Andreas Almgren, who ran a solo 7:36.38 recently to win the Swedish indoor 3000m title.
And while Laros leads the Dutch hopes in the 3000m, also watch out for the rapidly improving Stefan Nillessen who won at the World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meeting in Karlsruhe, Germany in early February in a since-improved Dutch indoor record of 7:37.10.
Only 22, Nillessen is already a proven championship performer, having won the 2023 European U23 1500m title before finishing an excellent and unexpected ninth in the Olympic 1500m final in Paris last summer.
A new champion to be crowned in the 800m
Adrian Ben won gold two years ago in Istanbul 2023 by a winning margin of 0.003 from France’s Benjamin Robert and even though he will not be defending his title in Apeldoorn, the 800m title could still remain in Spanish ownership.
The 2025 European list is headed by Elvin Josue Canales with 1:44.65 although he only finished third at the Spanish Indoor Championships in Madrid behind the proven duo of Mariano Garcia and Alvaro de Arriba.
In his 2022 annus mirabilis, Garcia won both the world indoor and European outdoor titles while de Arriba claimed the European indoor 800m title in Glasgow 2019.
The only returning medallist from two years ago is bronze medallist Eliott Crestan from Belgium who arrives at the championships in excellent form having set a European indoor 600m best of 1:14.92 and has won both of his 800m races this winter with sub-1:45 winning times. Can he go at least one better in Apeldoorn?
Other experienced campaigners who are due to compete include Ireland’s Mark English who won his first continental medal as far back as the 2014 European Athletics Championships and Sweden's Andreas Kramer, although the latter's form is hard to gauge as he hasn't raced competitively this winter.
And there is also a legitimate chance of a Dutch medal in the event courtesy of Samuel Chapple, who has made a huge breakthrough this winter and set Dutch indoor records at 800m (1:45.46), 1000m (2:16.09) and 1500m (3:35.61), making a massive improvement in the latter event as his outdoor best is a relatively modest 3:40.42.
Steven Mills for European Athletics