Athletics: European challenge brings chance for British encore

With "Land of Hope and Glory" still ringing in their heads, England's athletes are now seeking a rousing encore in the European Championships, which start on Tuesday. Whether that hope can turn to glory remains to be seen.

Even shifting the athletics programme to the beginning of the Commonwealth Games hardly gives competitors picked for both events time to repack their suitcases before taking what Britain's performance director, Max Jones, describes as "a step into the darkness".

That is no reflection upon the fine city of Munich, where the championships will be staged, but an expression of the uncertainty over how home-nations athletes will perform there. Darren Campbell's instinctive assessment that the European Championships felt like a competition too far given the emotions that have operated during the last heady week in the City of Manchester stadium may hold true for others.

Campbell, however, is still on course to compete in Germany, where he has earned a place at both 100 and 200 metres. Dwain Chambers, who cramped to a calamitous halt in Saturday's 100m final here along with his rival Mark Lewis-Francis, now seems likely to join him over the shorter distance after recovering swiftly from the problem which undermined his Commonwealth ambitions.

"Dwain's fine," Jones said yesterday. "There was no muscle damage, and after giving him extensive medical tests we have concocted a new fluid replacement for him containing the levels of minerals and electrolytes compatible with his physical problem."

Lewis-Francis, who suffered a small tear to his hamstring after being similarly stricken, is playing safe and missing the championships, and he will be joined on the sidelines by Jon Brown, who has had to pull out of the marathon with a virus, and the javelin thrower Goldie Sayers, who is out of form.

Jones is hoping that Paula Radcliffe, whose 10,000m comes on the opening day, and the 100m sprinters, who run on Wednesday, can get the team off to a positive start.

"Hopefully, some of the big hitters will bring back early medals and other people will think 'It can be done'," he said. "But we have never been in this situation before. Back in 1986 the Europeans were 21 days after the Commonwealths, but that gave athletes enough time to rest and then train again. What we have now is like a double major Games, and whether people will be drained mentally and physically... We'll just have to suck it and see."

Judging by yesterday's effervescent evidence, neither Kelly Holmes, winner of the 1500m, nor Ashia Hansen, who reclaimed the gold medal in the triple jump with the last effort of the competition, are approaching Munich in a fearful state of mind.

"It's going to be difficult, but I think you should really be able to handle doing back-to-back competitions," said Hansen, whose winning effort of 14.86m leads this year's world rankings. "People should be going on from this and going on to the Europeans fully confident. I'm going there as world No 1. Doing well in Manchester has given me a lot of confidence and probably will for a lot of other athletes."

All 10 of England's individual champions here will be going on to Munich, as will the bulk of the winning 4x100m and 4x400m relay squads who made up the dozen golds which helped leave their country top of the track and field medals table with 29, one above Australia.

For experienced competitors such as Steve Backley, who is seeking a fourth European javelin title, it will be a case of making sure they do the same things. For others, such as Michael East, whose 1500m victory provided England's most surprising gold on the final night, it will represent a sharp learning curve, although the 24-year-old Portsmouth runner's confident showing in last month's European Cup at Annecy will serve him well.

Munich is likely to prove harder going for a British team which topped the medals table at the last European Championships in Budapest with nine golds.

"There is a very strong, competitive field waiting for us there," Jones said. "The other European athletes will be rested and ready to produce peak performances. I believe we have 20 medal shots, but I would be very happy with 14 medals."