It was in Gothenburg 2006 that a delighted Jan Fitschen unexpectedly took the European Athletics 10,000m title and he was equally ecstatic after crossing the line in Sunday’s Berlin marathon.

The 39th Berlin marathon gets under way on Sunday morning September 30 and while all the talk is of Kenyans, world records and 41,000 participants, there are two Germans whose hopes are pitched at qualifying for next year's world championships.

It has been the strangest summer in Betty Heidler's career. First she amazingly failed to qualify for the hammer final at the European Athletics Championships in Helsinki where she was defending her title from Barcelona and then she was involved in the...

Aur lie Chaboudez is one of France's great hopes for the future, but she is keeping her feet firmly on the ground and taking it all step by step. In the last two years she has collected European junior silver in the 400m hurdles in Tallin and followed ...

Olympic champion Robert Harting's career is very much like a discus competition that starts off conservatively and then gets progressively more spectacular. In 2005, the German laid solid foundations by winning the European U23 title.

After winning two Olympic medals and a World Championships silver in Daegu last year, Russian walker, Denis Nizhegorodov, started off the year as though he meant to continue collecting major medals at the Olympic Games in London.