The city center of the Belgian city of Lier woke up to a special Sunday morning as the qualification for the afternoon sprint finals at the European Championships took center stage.
Challenging courses with winning times around 13 minutes would determine who would get the coveted spots in the final.
The 15 fastest athletes in each of the three heats for both genders earned their ticket to the final.
Heat wins for Valet, Regborn and Heikkilä
The men were the first to start and had to run on still wet cobblestones after the morning rain.
However, this did not seem to bother the earliest starters, who also set some of the fastest times as expected.
The men’s heats were won by Mathias Barros Valet (FRA), Martin Regborn (SWE) and Tuomas Heikkilä (FIN).
Evert Leeuws (BEL) runs through one of Lier’s narrow passages. Photo: EOC2025
46 athletes in both finals
The sun then came out when the women were to run their qualification.
Here Simona Aebersold (SUI), Eef van Dongen (NED) were fastest in their respective heats, while Tereza Rauturier and Victoria Hæstad Bjørnstad shared the best time in the last heat.
In both men and women, there were two athletes who shared a 15th place, so there will be 46 participants in the afternoon finals.
The Belgian home crowd can look forward to cheering on three male athletes who qualified.
The first men’s start is at 15:13, while the women’s final kicks off at 16:26.
The final can be followed on IOF LIVE and IOF TV from 15:30 to 18:00 CEST (UTC +2).
Go to IOF LIVE for qualification results and coverage of the finals