Four-time champion Nadia Battocletti is one of Italy’s big stars for the European Cross Country Championships in Brussels on December 10. After winning continental U20 gold in 2018 and 2019, the Italian repeated her success in the U23 with victories in 2021 and 2022. Next month, Nadia Battocletti will make her women’s debut at such a forum.
If she wins the title, she will become the first woman in the history of the European Cross Country Championships to win the under-20, under-23 and women’s individual events.
Nadia Battocletti is the Italian record holder for the indoor 3,000m and 5km road race. She represented Italy at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics competing in the 5000 m. She won an Italian national title at senior level in 2018, becoming the first Italian millennial to do that. Nadia Battocletti is a seven-time national senior champion and, as of 2023, has amassed 31 Italian titles across all surfaces and age-groups.
The Italian mixed relay team will also compete at the championship after they won a memorable gold medal on home soil twelve months ago and they will defend their title in Brussels. Their team includes last year’s lead-off runner Pietro Arese – fourth in the 1,500m at the 2022 European Athletics Championships – and Gaia Sabbatini, who ran the anchor leg of Italy’s triumphant quartet.
Italy is the seventh most successful nation in SPAR European Cross Country Championships history with 15 gold medals and 38 in total.
