Hasselt (Brussels Morning Newspaper) – The European Sprint Orienteering Championships will be held in Hasselt, Geel, and Lier, featuring 30 national teams, a relay highlight in Hasselt, and live coverage on Sporza.
As VRT News reported, the European Sprint Orienteering Championships will be held in Hasselt, Geel, and Lier in the coming days. The event will bring together the best athletes from across Europe to compete.
All orienteers will be tested on their ability to run a course as fast as possible by navigating a series of checkpoints in the correct order. Each competitor has the freedom to decide their own route. Races take place in urban settings and, for the most part, will take about 15 minutes.
“If you choose a bad route, you’ll run a longer distance. In long races, a faster runner can still correct a mistake, but in this discipline, seconds matter. The right route is crucial,” says spokesperson Verduyckt.
What are the European Sprint Orienteering Championships 2025 in Hasselt?
A key feature of the championship will be held in Hasselt and will feature 30 national teams competing for the European title in a team relay. Each team will have 2 men and 2 women. The relay will take athletes through the streets, squares, and hidden nooks of the city.
“For me, this is the most beautiful of the various events,” says Kris Verduckt.
The organisers of the European Sprint Orienteering Championships in Hasselt are preparing for large crowds. They say the recent victory of Yannick Michiels at the World Games has given the sport more attention in Belgium and could attract new fans. “His win brought extra exposure to our sport. Hopefully, many people will show up,” the organisers explained.
The main race will start and finish at the Kanaalkom in Hasselt. “That’s where most of the atmosphere will be, but the runners will also cover the streets of the city centre. Supporters can cheer them on from anywhere,” said Kris Verduckt.
He also admitted that Belgium is not the top favourite to win. “We have strong runners, but Switzerland or Sweden will probably take the title. Norway is also a shadow favourite in my view,” he added.
“Belgium is unfortunately not a favourite in the relay.”
Kris Verduckt, spokesperson for the European Orienteering Championships in Hasselt
The championship program also includes competitions in Geel and Lier. On Friday, Aug 29, 2025, Geel will host the qualifying rounds for the individual races, while the finals of those events will take place on Sunday, Aug 31, 2025, in Lier.
The event will be fully recorded and shown live on the Sporza website. “We have to change locations after each event,” Kris Verduckt explains. “Once the map is known, it’s no longer orienteering, of course. That’s why all the events take place in different locations.”
Sprint orienteering started in the early 2000s as a new form of the sport. It was designed to be faster and easier to follow for spectators. The European Sprint Orienteering Championships were added to the international calendar in 2004. The first edition took place in Roskilde, Denmark.
Since then, the event has moved every 2 years to different European cities. Each edition has drawn more athletes and more media attention. Belgium reached a milestone in 2022 when Yannick Michiels won gold at the World Games. He was the first Belgian to achieve this result in orienteering. That victory also helped Belgium secure the right to host the 2025 European Championships.
