Those wishing to watch what could be a record-breaking Championships live in their entirety will be able to do so by clicking through to the live stream link from the European Athletics website homepage.

The Opening Ceremony will be broadcast from 09:30 GMT, with the first of six races starting in the Slovenian city at 09:45.

Athletes' post-race interviews will be uploaded to the European Athletics YouTube site throughout the day of the event.

After the deadline for final entries closed at midnight on December 1, 489 athletes had been registered - 521 including reserves athletes - by 33 member federations to compete at this year's championships.

The current record number of competitors is the 468 athletes that started at the 2006, 2008 and 2010 SPAR European Cross Country Championships.

The breakdown of entries for the individual races in Velenje is: senior men 77, senior women 57, under-23 men 101, under-23 women 47, junior men 113 and junior women 94.

This means that there could be a record number of starters in three races: the under-23 men's race as well as the junior men's and women's races.

The records for the senior races are 106 and 80 which were set at the second edition of the Championships in 1995, and in the latter case equalled in 2002.

However, this was before the advent of the under 23 races in 2006; when many runners who now compete in this category would have competed for their country as seniors.

The highest number of countries to participate in the SPAR European Cross Country Championships was the 34 nations that made the trip to the town of Albufeira on Portugal's Algarve coast last year.

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