Nadia Battocletti confirms herself as queen of Europe in cross country

Gold and more gold. Italy wins twice at the European XC Championships in Lagoa, Portugal, with a double confirmation of last year’s successes. Nadia Battocletti is queen for the second time in a row, master of the senior race, and becomes six career titles in her extraordinary collection counting also the youth ones. Beaten were Britain’s Megan Keith and Turkey’s Yasemin Can. Italy again on target with the mixed relay team of Gaia Sabbatini, Sebastiano Parolini, Marta Zenoni and Pietro Arese, their third success in four years, ahead of Portugal and Great Britain. Battocletti triumphs at the European XC Championships in Lagoa for the second year in a row in the overall category and wins her sixth gold medal in the event after two as a junior and two as an under-23: none like her.

Repeating curves, clay, very short stretches of grass: an abnormal cross but the azure knows how to interpret every course. She is always in the leading positions to avoid incurring falls on a rather narrow course, so they remain in three at the halfway point with Britain&#8217s Megan Keith, European 10,000 bronze medalist, and Turkey&#8217s Yasemin Can, four European cross-country titles in her trophy cabinet. The key moment is on the downhill of the penultimate lap, with a couple of kilometers to go: the Italian launches the decisive attack and bends the two rivals, remaining alone to take the applause of the public on the final lap. Battocletti finished the 7.470 km in 24:52, silver to Keith in 25:07, bronze to Can (25:13). Trivia. In the history of the European XC Championships (31 editions), she is only the fourth athlete to confirm the overall title after Fionnuala Britton (2011, 2012), the aforementioned Yasemin Can (2016, 2017, 2018, 2019) and Norway’s Karoline Bjerkeli Grovdal (2021, 2022, 2023).

It is the crowning achievement of a dream season that saw her win 10,000 silver at the World Championships in Tokyo and bronze in the 5,000, as well as the European 10km road title. Podium narrowly missed by the Italian team, gold medalists last year, which finished fourth with 43 points just one length behind France&#8217s bronze medal at 42 and four behind Great Britain&#8217s silver (39). At the individual level there is 14th place for Elisa Palmero (25:58) and 28th for Valentina Gemetto (26:21), then 30th Micol Majori (26:21), 48th Nicole Reina (27:17) and 54th Federica Zanne (27:31). Gold for Belgium at 16 points with athletes in the top seven: fourth Jana Van Lent (25:24), fifth Lisa Rooms (25:34), seventh European half champion Chloé Herbiet (25:43). “I am so, so, so proud of me” rejoices the 25-year-old from Trentino of the Fiamme Azzurre, Olympic silver medalist in Paris in the 10,000.

“Seeing me on the starting line, one thinks that everything is always easy, but in reality one can arrive with a little more anxiety, tension, fatigue: by now the life of an athlete is not only running, in our days there&#8217s much more. I am happy that for me athletics remains a safe, pleasant place, where I can share my passion, joy, but also sorrows, with my mom and dad”. She was the No. 1 favorite and consequently the’special observer of all opponents.

“It was a hard-fought competition, I have to admit that they put her down tough, but it feels good to be attacked several times. I especially enjoyed the sections of continuous turns, climbs and descents, it is a terrain that I really enjoyed. At first it scared me because it has features you don&#8217t see every day. Then it was good, it felt like a roller coaster! I enjoyed it, I was almost a bloodhound behind the others, even though I often ended up in the lead because I made faster turns but then I knew how to get engulfed again”.