Austria, Croatia, Turkey and Ukraine teams for the World Championships

Reigning high jump world champion Blanka Vlasic of Croatia.

Many of European Athletics’ Member Federations are now starting to name their teams that will go to the 2011 IAAF World Championships, which will be staged in the South Korean city of Daegu from 27 August to 4 September.

www.european-athletics.org will keep you up to date with the announcements about who will be flying the flag for their respective nations.

Austria will be sending just three athletes: men - 1500m: Vojta; discus: Mayer; women 100m hurdles: Schrott.

Austrian athletes have won two medals at previous World Championships, Stephanie Graf winning an 800m silver medal in 2001 and high jumper Sigrid Kirchmann taking a bronze in 1993.

Croatia’s main hope for a medal is the 2007 and 2009 women’s high jump champion Blanka Vlašić, her country’s only medallist at the Championships and who is also the 2010 European Athlete of the Year.

The complete Croatian team is: men - discus: Maric, Varga; hammer: Haklits; women - marathon: Stublic; 400m hurdles: Horvat; high jump: Vlašić.

Turkey has named an initial team of six men and 17 women although there may be a few further additions in the next few days.

In the absence of the 2010 European Athletics Championships 10000m Elvan Abeylegesse, who is missing this summer due to maternity, a lot of interest will be on how the current European 5000m champion Alemitu Bekele fares in Korea.

Also going to Daegu is another Barcelona winner Nevin Yanit in the100m hurdles, but she has had injury problems earlier in the year and not been in the same form this summer. Turkey is also sending its medalists from the recent 2011 European Athletics U23 Championships, men’s javelin silver medallist Fatih Avan, women’s 800m silver medallist Merve Aydin and also women’s high jump bronze medallist Burcu Ayhan.

Long jumper Karin Melis Mey won Turkey’s only medal at the 2009 World Championships when she finished third and she will also go to Daegu.

The Turkish squad is: men - marathon: Karayel; discus: Olgundeniz; hammer: Apak, Eryildirim; javelin: Avan; 20km walk: Celik; women - 400m: Saka, Engin; 800m: Aydin, Kurt; 1500m: Cakir, Karakaya; 5000m: Bekele; marathon. Dogan; 3000m steeplechase: Uslu, Mingir; 100m hurdles: Yanit; 400m hurdles: Karedere, Engin; high jump: Ayhan; long jump: Mey; hammer: Sahutoglu; 20km walk: Mutlu; 4x400m: Engin, Saka, Redif, Aydin, Karedere.

Ukraine has selected a large group of 59 athletes that will go to Daegu. The leading medal hopes are triple jumper Olha Saladukha and the women’s 4x100m relay team, both of whom took gold medals at the 2010 European Athletics Championships.

It’s also impossible to ignore the 2008 Olympic Games heptathlon winner Nataliya Dobrynska while the 2011 European Athletics U23 Championships triple jump winner Sheryf El-Sheryf, who leapt a massive 17.72m in Ostrava and all three women’s 800m runners could also enter the reckoning for a place on the podium; as could high jumper Dmytro Demyanyuk if he can reproduce the form that took him over 2.35m to win at the SPAR European Team Championships in June.

There is a huge motivation to do better than two years ago in Berlin when the Ukraine team returned home without a single medal.

Ukraine: men – 400m hurdles: Melnykov; high jump: Demyanyuk, Protsenko; Bondarenko; pole vault: Yurchenko; triple jump: El-Sheryf, Semenenko; shot: Borodkin, Semenov; discus: Hryshyn, javelin: Pyatnytsa, Avramenko, Kosynskyy; hammer: Sokirskiy; decathlon: Kasyanov; 20km walk: Kovalenko, Dmitrenko; 50km walk: Kazanin; women: 100m, 200m, 4x100m: Povh, Ryemyen, Stuy; also included for the 100m is Pogrebnyak and for the 200m: Bryzgina (and also for 4x100); 400m: Yefremova; 800m: Lobanova, Krevsun, Petlyuk; 1500m: Mishchenko, Tobias, Shevchenko; marathon: Ruban, Gamera, Stetsenko, Burkovska, Holovchenko; 3000m steeplechase: Schmidt; 400m hurdles: Rabcheynuk, Titimets, Yaroshchuk; high jump: Styopina, Okuneva; long jump: Rybalko; triple jump: Saladuha, Yastrebova, Tsykhotska; discus: Karsak, Semenova; hammer: Zolotuhina; javelin: Rebryk; heptathlon: Dobrynska, Yosypenko, Fyodorova; 20kn walk: Yakovenko, Borovska, Shumkina; 4x400: Yefremova, Pigida, Zavgorodna (with further names to be added).