Get ready! The Clash of the Clubs IV is coming
25 July 2025

The brilliant 2025 summer of international competition opportunities for Europe’s young athletes will draw to a close as one of the Portugal’s top athletics centres and tourist destinations, the coastal city of Leiria, stages the fourth edition of the Dynamic New Athletics (DNA) U20 Clubs, dubbed the Clash of the Clubs, on 20 and 21 September.

Following the excitement of the European Athletics U23 Championships in Bergen, NOR and the U20 Championships in Tampere, FIN, the focus will turn to club athletes, who will get their chance to shine in team competition at its best in a unique live-streamed event that has become an end-of-season tradition.

Defending champions Sparta Atletik og Løb of Denmark have confirmed their entry and alongside the organising club Juventude Vidgalense they will face teams representing top clubs from nine other countries (the host country Portugal are allocated two team spots).

Situated approximately 90 minutes drive north of Portugal’s capital Lisbon, Leiria boasts ocean beaches, pine forests, thermal baths, a 12th century castle and, importantly, late summer weather that can be expected to provide excellent conditions for what is likely to be the final competition of the 2025 season for many of the participants.

Local organisers will call on their extensive international experience as the city’s Dr Magalhães Pessoa stadium was the venue for the first SPAR European Athletics Team Championships back in 2009 and since then has successfully staged the European Throwing Cup on no less than four occasions.

This will be the second time the Clash to takes place in Portugal following last year’s edition in the nearby city of Pombal, which provided an internet sensation when competitors celebrated by dancing and swapping t-shirts and competition kit on the infield for more than 30 minutes after the final race.

Previous editions were staged in Castellon, ESP in 2022 and Rome, ITA in 2023.

Introduced in 2019, European Athletics’ innovative DNA format – featuring mixed-gender teams, a compact timetable, head-to-head competition in the field events where every attempt counts towards the final score, and a match result that is open to the very last event – has proven to be especially popular with young athletes throughout Europe.

In Leiria, the programme for the preliminary matches on Day 1 and the finals on Day 2 will comprise a mixed 4×400 relay followed by 10 individual disciplines (five for men, five for women) for which points will be collected to determine the start order and time gaps for the final mixed medley relay, called ‘the Hunt’, which will determine the overall match winner.

To date more than 600 U20 category athletes representing 23 club teams from 15 countries have taken part in the Clash and post-event surveys consistently show high levels of satisfaction with both the event experience and the DNA concept.

As with the first three editions, the media strategy will be to lift the event profile and audience reach thereby helping to create new stars for our sport.
All the matches will be live-streamed and highly visible content will be published on social media to promote the event, the competing clubs and the top participating athletes.

In addition, competitors will be encouraged to share their preparation, travel and participation experiences on social media and take their smartphones onto the infield during the competition itself, to bring their followers as close to the action and excitement as possible.