Olympic 800m champion David Rudisha, world high jump champion Bogdan Bondarenko and European indoor 400m champion Pavel Maslak are among the first athletes signed up to compete at the Golden Spike IAAF World Challenge meeting in Ostrava on 26 May.Held in a newly renovated stadium, the 54th edition of the meeting will feature three non-traditional events.Rudisha will compete in the 600m, an event in which he contested last year in Birmingham, running one of the fastest times in history.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m very happy to be completely healthy and able to train as I would like. I&rsquo;m looking forward to a good 2015 season,&rdquo; said the 800m world record-holder from Kenya, who last competed in Ostrava in 2010.&ldquo;As I build towards the Beijing World Championships, I&rsquo;m excited to be starting my European season running 600m in Ostrava. It is a strong distance for me and I&rsquo;m confident I can run faster than the 1:13.71 I did last year. It will be good to come back to Ostrava, it has been some years but I've always enjoyed myself there. The crowd is very enthusiastic.&rdquo;World indoor champion Maslak is going to run the 300m with the aim of breaking the European record of 31.56 set in 1998 by Britain&rsquo;s Doug Walker. &ldquo;I want to try for a fast time,&rdquo; said the Czech sprinter. &ldquo;At the beginning of the season, this is the best distance to choose.&rdquo;Another recent European indoor champion Jakub Holusa will contest the 1000m. His goal is to break the national record of 2:16.56 set in 1998 by Lukas Vydra. &ldquo;I broke Czech indoor record at 1000m,&rdquo; said Holusa. &ldquo;Now I also want the outdoor one.&rdquo;Czech javelin stars Barbora Spotakova and Vitezslav Vesely are among the other leading athletes set to compete in Ostrava, along with Ukrainian high jumper Bondarenko.Organisers for the IAAF

Olympic 800m champion David Rudisha, world high jump champion Bogdan Bondarenko and European indoor 400m champion Pavel Maslak are among the first athletes signed up to compete at the Golden Spike IAAF World Challenge meeting in Ostrava on 26 May.

Rudisha, Bondarenko and Maslak will compete in Ostrava

Russia had to wait until the women&rsquo;s 3000m yesterday evening for their first medal of any colour at the European Indoor Championships in Prague, but a brace of gold medals on the final day (8) propelled the powerhouse of European athletics to the top of the medal table with six gold medals.The gold rush started towards the beginning of the final day&rsquo;s programme thanks to a world-leading combined-events display by Ilya Shkurenev in the heptathlon.Shkurenev, 24, led by 101 points overnight from renowned second-day performer Arthur Abele from Germany. He closed the gap on the Russian in his favourite event, the 60m hurdles, with a 7.67 PB which has only been bettered by Ashton Eaton among combined-eventers.As fast as Abele was, he didn&rsquo;t make too much of an impact on Shkurenev&rsquo;s lead, who kept up his title assault with a 7.86 60m hurdles &ndash; his first time under the eight-second barrier.Shkurenev tallied more than 2000 points from the first two events on the second day. After breaking new ground in the hurdles, he cleared every height in the pole vault at his first time up to 5.30m.The Russian indoor record of 6412 was within his grasp but with a cushion of 176 points heading into the 1000m, Shkurenev could have also chosen to lope around towards the back.&nbsp; Crossing the line in 2:44.82, Shkurenev&rsquo;s mark of 6353 was a breakthrough. It was a world-leading mark, plus a PB by more than 200 points. He also became the first Russian winner of the heptathlon at the European Indoor Championships."Could I improve even more? Maybe," said Shkurenev. "One week before the championships, I had a little incident in training and was injured. I couldn't train very hard during last week before the Prague, but maybe that is why I felt fresh here and had a huge desire to compete."Abele claimed silver with a PB of 6279 while defending champion Eelco Sintnicolaas, who had a disappointing pole vault by his own high standards, had to settle for bronze with 6185.<h3>Sidorova and Koneva on top form on the in-field</h3> Russian vaulters have now won five of the 10 titles in European Indoor Championships history after Anzhelika Sidorova continued her country&rsquo;s excellent tradition in the event, taking gold with an outright PB of 4.80m.Sidorova, 23, proved her big-time mettle again. After lying out of the medals at the European Championships in Zurich last year, she moved from fourth to first thanks to a third-time clearance at 4.65m.Ekaterini Stefanidi passed at 4.80m in an attempt to overhaul Sidorova, but the Greek came away with silver with 4.75m. In bronze, Angelica Bengtsson upped the Swedish record to 4.70m. Meanwhile, perennial medallist Ekaterina Koneva upgraded her silver medal from Zurich with gold in the women&rsquo;s triple jump in a world-leading 14.67m.The outcome reflected the 2015 European list, as Gabriela Petrova from Bulgaria and Hanna Knyazyeva, second and third on the world lists, took silver and bronze with 14.52m and 14.49m respectively.A first-time clearance at 2.31m gave Daniyil Tsyplakov the high jump title on countback from surprise medallists Silvano Chesani from Italy and Adonios Mastoras of Greece.<h3>Schippers equals world lead for 60m title</h3> Following in the footsteps of six-time winner Nelli Cooman, Dafne Schippers returned the European indoor 60m title to the Netherlands with an equal world-leading time of 7.05.While Cooman was renowned for her bullet-like start, Schippers does her best running over the second half. After a poor start, the European 100m and 200m champion cut through the field over the final portion of the 60m to win her third continental sprint title; not bad for an athlete who might still go back to the heptathlon for the IAAF World Championships in Beijing.Teenager Dina Asher-Smith equalled the British senior 60m record of 7.08 &ndash; a world age-19 best &ndash; to win Britain&rsquo;s first medal in this event at the European Indoor Championships since 1985.By contrast, British sprinters have taken at least one medal in the men&rsquo;s short sprint at every championships since 1988, and world indoor champion Richard Kilty duly became the sixth British winner of the men&rsquo;s 60m title since 2000.Team-mate Chijindu Ujah was Kilty&rsquo;s principal rival but the UK indoor champion, who ducked under the 10-second mark for 100m last year, was disqualified for a false start. At the second time of asking, Kilty was the fastest from the blocks with a 0.138 reaction time and won by a clear margin in a season&rsquo;s best of 6.51 ahead of the German pair of Christian Blum and Julian Reus in 6.58 and 6.60 respectively.<h3>Holusa excites electric crowd with 1500m gold</h3> Pavel Maslak&rsquo;s gold medal in the 400m was an expected one for the hosts but Jakub Holusa, who hadn&rsquo;t cracked 3:40 for the distance this year, wasn&rsquo;t one of the touted names heading into the 1500m.With adjusted tactics from yesterday&rsquo;s qualifying when he passed 800m under world record pace, Turkey&rsquo;s Ilham Tanui Ozbilen controlled the final from the front, and the game plan seemed to work.Ozbilen&rsquo;s lead stretched out to about six metres heading into the last lap but with the crowd at his back, the adrenaline pumping through the veins, and with a target to aim for, Holusa started to rally.Approaching the final turn, Holusa still looked destined for second but he clawed back the deficit and nabbed Ozbilen on the line.The noise inside the O2 Arena was comparable to yesterday for the men&rsquo;s 400m final, as Holusa closed what seemed an insurmountable gap. He claimed an unexpected second title for the hosts in a Czech record of 3:37.68 to Ozbilen&rsquo;s 3:37.74.On paper, Sifan Hassan from the Netherlands was the fastest in the women&rsquo;s 1500m by nearly six seconds so it didn&rsquo;t come as a surprise that nobody followed her early pace when she took the lead as the gun fired.Through 800m in 2:11.85, Hassan led by seven seconds over a tightly bunched group who started to make some inroads over the second half.At the bell in 3:37.1, Hassan&rsquo;s lead was halved to 3.8 seconds but despite tiring, the 22-year-old held on for the win in 4:09.04 ahead of Angelika Cichocka in 4:10.53.Two-time winner Adam Kszczot was unable to defend his 800m title through illness but the title stayed in Polish hands courtesy of his friend and team-mate Marcin Lewandowski.Thijmen Kupers kicked to the front after a slow opening 400m of 54.32 but after a 25.92 third lap, title favourite Lewandowski moved on to the Dutchman&rsquo;s shoulder before hitting the front with 150m remaining.Lewandowski, the European outdoor champion five years ago, posted a sizeable negative split for the title in 1:46.67 ahead of Ireland&rsquo;s Mark English, who fought off Kupers for silver in 1:47.20.Selina Buchel claimed Switzerland&rsquo;s first European indoor title since 1987 in the women&rsquo;s 800m ahead of Olympic bronze medallist Ekaterina Poistogova, 2:01.95 to 2:01.99.Jenny Meadows, the world-leader at 1:59.21, came down with a virus last week and was advised to withdraw from the final by medical staff.<h3>European 4x400m record caps thrilling programme</h3> The Polish relay team led for roughly 1585 metres of the curtain-closing 4x400m final but their anchor runner Jakub Krzewina was denied the title &ndash; and the European indoor record &ndash; by an excellent 44.99 anchor from Kevin Borlee.After a 46.88 first leg from Julien Watrin, individual silver medallist Dylan Borlee put his team in contention with a 45.86 split before Jonathan brought Kevin within striking distance thanks to a 45.14 third leg.Belgium and Poland both ducked under the previous European indoor record of 3:03.01 held by a Polish team from the 1999 World Indoor Championships with 3:02.87 and 3:02.97 respectively.Anchored by Maslak, the Czechs took bronze in a national record of 3:04.09.Sharpened elbows were a requirement in the women&rsquo;s 4x400m where the six competing teams were still in contention on the last circuit.Less than a second separated the finalists, with France claiming the gold medal in 3:31.61 ahead of Great Britain (3:31.79) and Poland (3:31.90).Steven Mills for the IAAF

Russia had to wait until the women’s 3000m yesterday evening for their first medal of any colour at the European Indoor Championships in Prague, but a brace of gold medals on the final day (8) propelled the powerhouse of European athletics to the top of the medal table with six gold medals.

Russia dominates but Belgium enthrals with European indoor 4x400m record in Prague 

A late reinstatement of Germany’s initially disqualified women’s 4x100m team led to joy in the host nation’s camp, and turned a four-point deficit into a three-point lead over defending champions Russia at the end of the first day of the 2014 European Team Championships in Brunswick on Saturday (21).After 21 of the 40 events, 2009 champions Germany lead with 195 points. Russia, winners at the past three editions of what is probably the premier national team contest in the world, are second with 192. France are a distant third with 161 points, and were chased hard for the final place on the podium by Great Britain with 158.5, while Poland lie fifth with 153.5.At the other end of the standings, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey occupy the bottom three places in the 12-team competition and face relegation to the first league in 2015.On a day of chilly conditions and blustery winds, Germany notched up three wins from shot putter David Storl, 5000m man Arne Gabius and long jumper Christian Reif, and many of their other representatives added ample points to their tally, but pole position at the end day one revolved around a fifth-place finish by their women’s 4x100m quartet.A bugled last changeover led to them being initially disqualified but, after an appeal was lodged and video footage reviewed, the quartet of Yasmin Kwadwo, Tatjiana Pinto, Rebekka Haase and Verena Sailer gained Germany an extra seven points. Although the European powerhouses of athletics took the stage in the picturesque German city, it was the Netherlands’ Sifan Hassan who arguably provoked the biggest celebrations in a loud and cheerful ‘oranje’ block in the Eintracht Stadium.Hassan stormed to a convincing victory, surging to the front 500 metres from home, to win the women’s 3000m in a European-leading time of 8:45.24, which was also a championship record. Despite the great result, and a 58.93 final lap, Hassan was still critical of her race. “I am used to running much faster, so I cannot be satisfied with the result. The pace was very slow, so it was easy for me to spare my energy for the last lap. The European Championships in Zurich will be more important now, so I hope to show some better time there,” reflected Hassan. Another championship record fell in the men’s 1500m, which saw the German crowd cheer on rising talent Homiyu Tesfaye, only for him to be overtaken in the final metres of the race by Czech Republic’s Jakub Holusa in 3:37.74.Storl invincible in front of home crowd&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; However, the home crowd had numerous other reasons to celebrate.One of them was when two-time world champion David Storl relegated Poland's double Olympic champion Tomasz Majewski to second place early in their event. Storl’s 21.20m third-round effort was a season’s best, and Storl credited his good form to the support from the stands: “Those who know me well know that I often have up to two false attempts at championships. But that is impossible at home, in front of a home crowd. “I have much more fun knowing and feeling that the audience really follows the competition like today, so I encouraged them before my attempt.”In the men’s long jump, Reif beat Britain's Olympic champion and current world leader Greg Rutherford.Reif’s victorious third-round jump of 8.13m trumped Rutherford’s earlier 7.99m and came just a few minutes after another win for the hosts as Arne Gabius came out on top after a gripping finale to the 5000m which saw the German ahead coming into the home straight, lose his lead and then fight back in the final few metres be beat Spain’s Jesús Espana, winning in 13:55.89. Another leading performance came from France’s world silver medallist Melina Robert-Michon, who came out top in the discus with a second-round throw of 65.51m after Germany's late replacement Shanice Craft, coming in at short notice for the injured Nadine Muller, hurled her implement out to 65.07m. “I wanted to improve my season’s best and this is what I did," said Michon. "I did not start very well because the disc went into the cage at the first attempt. So when I saw the result of Shanice it gave me a lot of adrenaline which was good.”Russia had six individual victories including the men’s 400m hurdles and hammer as well as the women’s 400m, 800m, pole vault and triple jump.Anzhelika Sidorova triumphed in the pole vault with a career outdoor best of 4.65m despite apparently struggling with the challenging weather conditions. “It started to rain a bit at the end of the competition, so I rather stopped jumping at 4.70m because I was already close to my PB and did not want to risk an injury.”Double celebrations followed by double disappointment for FranceThe 100m saw a double victory for France as Myriam Soumare and then Jimmy Vicaut stormed to 12 points in 11.35 and 10.03 respectively. However, delight turned to despair later for the French team as Vicaut injured his hamstring in the final few metres of his race and dropped out of the 4x100m relay, which then was disqualified as well.As the French suffered, the British were celebrating a victory in the men’s 4x100m as the curse of dropping the baton seems to be finally broken. The quartet of world indoor champion Richard Kilty, Harry Aikines-Aryeetey, James Ellington and Adam Gemili took the 12 points in 38.88.In the women’s javelin, Czech Republic’s two-time Olympic champion Barbora Spotakova took the victory when she sent the last throw of the competition out to 65.57m, consolidating her lead and more than two metres more than anyone else could manage. In the women’s 400m hurdles Hanna Ryzhykova (nee Yaroshchuk) stormed to a season’s best of 55.00 to hold off European leader Eilidh Child of Great Britain.Many of the top performers in Brunswick are using the European Team Championships as a way of gauging the strength of some of their main rivals ahead of the forthcoming European Championships in August, which will be used to decide the European team that will contest the IAAF Continental Cup in Marrakesh, Morocco, on 13-14 September.Michelle Sammet for the IAAF

A late reinstatement of Germany’s initially disqualified women’s 4x100m team led to joy in the host nation’s camp, and turned a four-point deficit into a three-point lead over defending champions Russia at the end of the first day of the 2014 European Team Championships in Brunswick on Saturday (21).

Rudisha, Bondarenko and Maslak will compete in Ostrava

Russia dominates but Belgium enthrals with European indoor 4x400m record in Prague

Germany hold narrow lead after day one of the European Team Championships