How did the Belgian Falcons turn relay progress into European bronze?

Belgium’s men’s 4x100-metre team won European bronze in Birmingham on Saturday, 15 August, giving the Belgian Falcons their first senior continental medal, while the Belgian Rockets placed fifth in the women’s final later that evening. European Athletics recorded the Falcons at 38.70 seconds and the Rockets at 43.31, confirming two top-five finishes for Belgium at Alexander Stadium.

The Falcons’ medal belongs first to the four sprinters who carried the baton: Kobe Vleminckx, Antoine Snyders, Raphael Kapenda and Simon Verherstraeten. Britain won the race on home soil and Germany took silver; Belgium held third place to complete a progression from sixth at Munich 2022 and fourth at Rome 2024. RTBF’s Francophone coverage described the Falcons as having “offered themselves” bronze, a celebratory Belgian framing of a result that the wider European picture also presents as part of Britain’s commanding relay night.

For a Belgium-based audience, the significance is straightforward rather than institutional: a relay programme that had repeatedly approached the European podium finally reached it. Atletiek Vlaanderen’s official championship tracker listed the Falcons as bronze medallists in 38.70 after they had qualified automatically from their heat in 38.84. The medal also gave national athletics another result built on collective execution, where three exchanges matter as much as any runner’s individual speed.

That distinction is important in the 4x100 metres. Four athletes each cover one bend or straight, but the baton must be transferred inside prescribed zones at close to maximum speed. A technically poor exchange can erase an advantage or end a race. Belgium has learned that lesson repeatedly: at the World Relays in Gaborone in May, the Falcons failed to complete their opening race after a missed first handover, before returning in a qualifying round and setting a Belgian record of 38.40, according to the Belga report carried by Starsporttv.

The Birmingham final was therefore slower than Belgium’s national record, but championship racing rewards position, not the fastest performance ever produced. Britain stopped the clock at 38.45 and Germany at 38.64, with Belgium close behind. That creates two legitimate readings of the evening. The European competitive view emphasises Britain’s victory and Belgium’s 0.34-second deficit to the champions. The Belgian programme view emphasises that the Falcons converted several seasons of faster running, near misses and exchange work into a medal when a final demanded clean execution.

The Rockets experienced the other side of that equation. Their 43.31 placed them fifth, behind champions Britain, Switzerland and Poland among others, after they had advanced from the heats in 42.98. Fifth is not a medal, but it kept Belgium among Europe’s leading women’s sprint-relay nations. It also followed the disappointment of the 2026 World Relays, where the women missed qualification for the 2027 World Championships after finishing fifth in their second-chance race, according to Starsporttv.

The women’s result gains context from the broader Belgian sprint revival. Delphine Nkansa had already won European 100-metre bronze in Birmingham in 11.06, Atletiek Vlaanderen reported, giving the Rockets access to an individual medallist within their relay group. Yet the team’s final was slower than its 42.98 heat and remained well outside Belgium’s long-standing national record of 42.54, set at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The fifth place is consequently evidence of continental competitiveness, not proof that every technical or performance gap has closed.

Public investment forms a secondary Belgian angle. Sport Vlaanderen said its 2025 elite-sport policy introduced specific performance programmes for the men’s and women’s 4x100 teams, including part-time contracts for Vleminckx, Verherstraeten and Rani Rosius. Vleminckx said at the time that such support would let him focus fully on training and recovery rather than combine athletics with a job in the chemical sector. Birmingham offers a visible sporting return, although one medal cannot by itself establish how much any single funding measure contributed.

The next test is whether the Falcons can reproduce medal-level exchanges while approaching their 38.40 record, and whether the Rockets can turn regular European finals into a podium challenge. Selection changes, injuries and relay order will all shape that work. For now, Birmingham marks a clear threshold: Belgian men’s sprinting no longer merely threatens the European podium; it has a medal to show for the progress.