Sweden’s Sarah Lahti will defend her title at the Warandecross in Tilburg, a World Athletics Cross Country Tour Silver meeting, on Sunday (26) on the road to the SPAR European Cross Country Championships in Brussels on 10 December.
The Warandecross will be streamed live on the European Athletics YouTube channel without restrictions from 12.00pm local time (CET) on Sunday and will be accompanied by expert English-language commentary.
In one of the principal selection races for Brussels, Lahti will face a strong Dutch contingent in the senior women’s 8km including 3000m steeplechase specialist Veerle Bakker, the top Dutch finisher at last year’s European Cross Country Championships in tenth.
Other leading international contenders include Finland’s Nathalie Blomqvist, Hungary’s Lili Anna Vindics-Toth and Juliette Thomas, who finished second in the Belgian Cross Country Championships last week to seal her place on the national team for Brussels next month.
In the senior men’s 10km, Noah Schutte, Filmon Tesfu and Dutch cross country champion Tom Hendriske are among the leading domestic athletes who will be looking to become the first Dutch winner in Tilburg since Mike Foppen in 2019.
But standing in their way are the likes of Germany’s 27:30.01 10,0000m performer Nils Voigt, Spain’s former European 5000m champion Ilias Fifa and the improving Norwegian Senay Fissehatsion who has showed excellent form on the roads in recent weeks with lifetime bests of 28:26 for 10km and 60:55 for the half marathon.
The streaming begins at 12.00pm local time (CET) with the U20 men's race. The men's senior race takes place at 12.50pm followed by the senior women's race at 1.30pm and the men's and women's short course races at 2.08pm and 2.19pm. The full timetable and more information on the event can be found on the Warandecross website.
Some of the all-time greats of distance running have triumphed at the Warandecross which dates back to 1956. Former champions include Kenya's Tegla Loroupe (1992), Ethiopia's Gete Wami (1995-97) and Sifan Hassan from the Netherlands (2013-15) on the women’s side and Ethiopia's Kenenisa Bekele (2000) on the men’s side.