World medallists Carolin Schafer and Kai Kazmirek will be looking for more major medals on home soil at the Berlin 2018 European Athletics Championships from 7-12 August, part of the inaugural multi-sport European Championships.
Schafer won a silver medal behind Nafissatou Thiam in the heptathlon at the IAAF World Championships in London and she is currently ranked second on the 2018 European lists behind the Belgian who is looking to complete the set of major outdoor titles in Berlin at the age of 23.
Thiam posted a European and world-leading score of 6806 points to win the Gotzis Hypo-Meeting last month. Schafer didn’t record a valid effort in the shot put in Gotzis but the German rebounded three weeks later with victory in Ratingen where she scored 6549 points for a commanding win ahead of Austria's Ivona Dadic.
Third and fourth in Ratingen, Mareike Arndt and Louisa Grauvogel have also been named on the German heptathlon team for the European Championships in Berlin. They will both make their senior international debuts in the German capital in less than two months’ time.
The German decathlon team includes Kai Kazmirek who won a bronze medal in the decathlon at the World Championships last August. Kazmirek was fourth in Gotzis with 8329 points but he was supplanted at the top of the 2018 German lists by Arthur Abele, who won in Ratingen with 8481 points - the second best score by a European multi-eventer this year behind Estonia's Maicel Uibo.
The third member of the German decathlon team is former world indoor heptathlon bronze medallist Matthias Brugger, who scored a lifetime best of 8304 points in Gotzis.
Reigning world and European U20 champion Niklas Kaul just missed out on selection while world silver medallist Rico Freimuth put an end to his season after dropping out of Gotzis in May.
More information on the 2018 European Championships:
- The Berlin 2018 European Athletics Championships will be part of the first multi-sport European Championships along with co-hosts Glasgow.
- It will be a must-watch, must-attend experience that elevates the status of European Champions, uniting existing European Championships to celebrate the highest honour in European sport and celebrating the defining moments that create Champions.
- It is the continent’s ultimate multi-sport event, an 11-day celebration of European sport staged every four years.
- Seven of Europe’s leading sports (athletics, aquatics, rowing, golf, cycling, gymnastics, triathlon) will be brought together for the first edition.
- The European Athletics Championships in Berlin will be staged 7-12 August. The six other sports will be staged in Glasgow through 2-12 August.
- 4500 athletes and 52 nations will compete across the seven sports.
- Potential TV audience of over one billion with millions more across multiple digital platforms.
- Over half a million spectators expected.