Credit: Ievgenii Karanov, Chronicle.lu

From Friday 1 to Sunday 3 August 2025, the Luxembourg National Athletics Championships took place at the National Athletics Centre - INS in Luxembourg-Grund, bringing together top national athletes and several international competitors.

European indoor and world medallist Patrizia van der Weken competed in the women’s 100m sprint at the national championships, running the fastest time in the heats with 11.22 seconds to qualify for the final. In the decisive race, the 25-year-old claimed the national title with a winning time of 11.38 seconds.

Reflecting on her performance, van der Weken told Chronicle.lu: “The heats were really good - very promising for the next couple of weeks, so that’s good. In the final, I think I went well, but the conditions were not good, especially the wind, which was very unfortunate.” She added: “It was just to show up and try to put some decent sprinting together because we’ve been working a lot. It’s always tough to come out of training and perform well in competitions, but I think things are going well.”

Looking ahead, Patrizia van der Weken confirmed she will compete next at the Sestriere International in Italy on Sunday 10 August 2025, followed by the Brussels Diamond League on Friday 22 August 2025 - her final confirmed outing before the World Championships in Tokyo, although she noted that another event may take place in between.

Also competing at the national championships was middle-distance runner Ruben Querinjean, who recently set a new FISU World University Games record in the men’s 3000m steeplechase. In Luxembourg, the 24-year-old switched distances to support his clubmate Charles Grethen in the 1500m, aiming to assist him in meeting the World Championships qualifying standard.

Querinjean led the race until around the 1200m mark before allowing Grethen to take the front. However, the final time of 3:41.79 fell short of the qualifying mark of 3:33.00.

“My goal was to just run in Luxembourg at the nationals and to help my colleague Charles Grethen for being qualified for the World Championships,” Querinjean told Chronicle.lu. “I don’t know if it’s good, because it was difficult to pace - there was a lot of wind.”

He added that he had already achieved the World Championships qualifying standard in the 3000m steeplechase (8:14.33 - a new national record) in Turku, Finland, a month earlier. His current focus is on altitude training in France, with a return planned for the end of August. Looking ahead to Tokyo, he acknowledged that reaching the final would be a challenge and emphasised the need to be in peak physical condition to realise this goal.

Also aiming to qualify for the World Championships is Vera Bertemes-Hoffmann, who remains in strong contention in the 1500m. The 28-year-old athlete clocked a time of 4:15.18 on Saturday 2 August 2025 to win the national title with a commanding lead of nearly 25 seconds.

Speaking to Chronicle.lu, she confirmed that her chances of qualifying for the World Championships in Tokyo were “very good”, adding: “I'm 37 out of 56, so I have a lot of that should be all right.” She explained that her focus in Luxembourg's championships was on securing valuable points towards her ranking: “First of all to win, of course, but still do a decent time, because 4:15.00 with the 100 points for first place in the ranking, it's still a solid time. And for European Championships, the qualification period opened like Monday [4 August 2025], so this will count already for next year. So even though I'm good for World Championships, I still wanted to do a decent time in regards to next year - indoor races, outdoor races - so that I do something decent.”

On Sunday 3 August, Bertemes-Hoffmann went on to break the national women’s 5000m record - a benchmark that had stood since 1986. Her winning time of 15:29.06 surpassed the previous record of 15:42.38. The athlete confirmed that this would be her final competitive outing before the upcoming World Championships in September. The qualification period for the World Athletics Championships Tokyo 2025 runs until 24 August 2025.

In other results at the Luxembourg National Athletics Championships, hammer thrower Sofia Snäll equalled her own national record with a throw of 58.08 metres. The performance also matched the U20 and U23 national bests. Snäll is set to compete at the U20 European Championships in Tampere, Finland, from Thursday 7 to Sunday 10 August 2025.

In the women’s 5000m, Linda Krombach set new national U20 and U23 bests, finishing in 16:24.07. This time improved the previous U20 record of 17:46.71 (held by Maryse Scheller) by more than one minute and was well within the U23 standard of 17:30.