The Apeldoorn 2025 European Athletics Indoor Championships are gearing up for a second day (7) with six gold medals to be decided and the likes of Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Nadine Visser aiming to capture them.
Here are five key storylines to follow ahead of the second evening session in the Omnisport Arena.
Ingebrigtsen’s first target awaits
The first part of Jakob Ingebrigtsen’s bid for a double-gold swoop in Apeldoorn begins with the evening session’s 1500m final.
The Norwegian sensation is looking for his sixth European indoor title. Winning both the 1500m and 3000m would also match what he did at the previous two editions of the European Athletics Indoor Championships.
The 24-year-old is the overwhelming favourite, having started the year with a world indoor mile record of 3:45.14 in Lievin. He even lowered his own 1500m record en route to that time, with 3:29.63.
Visser looking for third European indoor title
Dutch home favourite Nadine Visser is aiming for a third European indoor 60m hurdles title, but she will have to be at her best to clinch it against a fantastic field of athletes.
The 30-year-old won gold at Glasgow 2019 and Torun 2021, before being the runner-up to Finland’s Reetta Hurske, who is looking to retain her title in Apeldoorn.
But Ditaji Kambundji of Switzerland and Poland’s Pia Skrzyszowska will provide staunch opposition. They won their respective semifinals in 7.82 and 7.84 with Visser a close second behind Kambundji in the second semifinal in 7.85.
As ever, the medals could well be separated by tiny fractions of a second come the evening session’s final.
Szymanski vs Belocian for men’s sprint hurdles gold?
Polish sprint hurdler Jakub Szymanski has been brilliant so far this season. He started his year with a phenomenal 60m hurdles of 7.41 in Luxembourg, only to improve to 7.39 in Lodz the following month.
The only European to have ever gone faster is Great Britain’s Colin Jackson, who holds the European record with 7.30 and the championship record with 7.39 from the 1994 European Athletics Indoor Championships, a mark which could come under some threat in the final.
But based on the form in the early rounds, France’s 2021 European indoor champion Wilhem Belocian could be the one to beat. He was the fastest in both the heats with 7.46 and the semifinals with 7.44.
Can anyone reel in Ehammer?
Historically, fortune has not been on Simon Ehammer’s side at the European Athletics Indoor Championships but the former European U20 champion has made a prodigious start to proceedings in the heptathlon and leads after three events with 2862 points.
Ehammer set a championship best of 8.20m in the long jump – a championship best and the first combined eventer to break the eight metre-barrier in the history of the European Athletics Indoor Championships – and the Swiss was delighted with his 15.15m effort in the shot put, the second best put of his career.
But European indoor and outdoor silver medallist Sander Skotheim from Norway, who broke Kevin Mayer’s European record in Tallinn with 6484 points last month, is expected to make inroads into Ehammer’s lead in the high jump. At his best, the 22-year-old is a 2.20m performer.
Familiar reunion of Rome triple jump medallists
Six women approach Apeldoorn having leapt over 14.00m this year in the triple jump. They are led by Ana Peleteiro-Compaore, the favourite and reigning European champion outdoors, who is joined by the silver and bronze medallists from Rome.
The Spanish athlete won the indoor title in Glasgow in 2019, before finishing second behind Portugal’s Patricia Mamona in 2021.
The runner-up outdoors last June was the reigning European indoor champion, Tugba Danismaz of Türkiye. Meanwhile, France’s Ilionis Guillaume won her first senior international medal in Rome and she comes in off the back of a third consecutive French indoor title.
Peleteiro-Compaore and Danismaz qualified for the final with the first and second longest jumps of qualifying with 14.14m and 14.10m respectively while Guillaume also progressed on distance with 13.93m.
