Team Belgium take four athletes to world indoor championships in China
Only four Belgian athletes will be competing this week in the World Indoor Championships in China. Eliott Crestan, Rani Rosius, Michael Obasuyi and Ruben Verheyden are the only Belgians to make the almost 9,000 km journey to Nanjing.
The men’s 400m relay team, their figurehead Alexander Doom and heptathlete Noor Vidts are not competing, leaving Crestan as the only medal winner from last year’s tournament in Glasgow. He took bronze in the 800m in Scotland and the president of the Flemish Athletics League believes he has a chance of a medal again in China.
“In this selection, Eliott is definitely the athlete with the best chance of reaching the final,” Gery Follens said. “And maybe he can go for another medal, although we’ll have to wait and see how the field stacks up against him.
Record breaker
Crestan won silver two weeks ago in the European Indoor Championships in Apeldoorn in the Netherlands. The mixed 4x400m relay team took silver and the men’s relay team won bronze.
Rosius will compete in the 60m, having finished fifth in the European competition. She broke Kim Gevaert’s 2007 Belgian record in the semi-final. Hurdler Obasuyi had a disrupted preparation for the indoor season due to injury but made it to the final in Apeldoorn, finishing sixth. Verheyden will be appearing at the World Indoor Championships for the first time, in the 1,500m.
The Belgian Tornados relay team decided not to defend their 2024 indoor world title. Captain Alexander Doom, the individual world champion in the 400m, had already decided not to participate, having also missed the European tournament due to injury.
"In a post-Olympic year a lot of athletes take a step back or get injured more easily. It’s understandable after such a peak"
Reigning pentathlon champion Noor Vidts could have aimed for a third consecutive world title in Nanjing, but decided to skip both the world and European indoors. She took Olympic bronze in the heptathlon in Paris last summer.
“She says she is not in top form and as the defending champion she would have been under pressure,” Follens said. “In a post-Olympic year a lot of athletes take a step back or get injured more easily. It’s understandable after such a peak.”
#FlandersNewsService | Eliott Crestan in the men's 800m, at the European Indoor Championships, in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands, 9 March 2025 © BELGA PHOTO ERIC LALMAND
Related news
