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| Romain Barras, France's 2010 European Athletics Championships gold medallist, is invited to compete at the Paris 2011 European Athletics Indoor Championships. |
European Athletics has confirmed that the entry procedure for the combined events for the 2011 European Athletics Indoor Championships in Paris, which will be held in the French capital 4-6 March, will be similar to previous championships.
The men's heptathlon and women's pentathlon will see fields of 15 athletes with a maximum of two per country.
Ten athletes will be invited based on the 2010 rankings while the remaining five places will be allocated based on 2011 indoor results, with a deadline of 10 days prior to the first day of the championship.
In the men's heptathlon, the 10 invited athletes are: France's 2010 European Athletics Championships decathlon gold medallist Romain Barras, the Netherlands' Eeclo Sintnicolaas, Ukraine's Oleksiy Kasyanov, Belarus' Andrei Kravchenko, Estonia's Mikk Pahapill, Russia's Aleksey Drozdov, Germany's Pascal Behrenbruch, France's Nadir El-Fassi, Belgium's Hans Van Alphen and Austria's Roland Schwarzl.
Pahapill is the defending European indoor champion after having won in Torino last year.
On the women's side only nine women have secure invitations as the host France is not represented in the top 10 and one place is guaranteed for them. The women are: Great Britain's Jessica Ennis, Ukraine's Natalia Dobrynska, Germany's Jennifer Oeser, Russia's Tatyana Chernova, Germany's Lilli Schwarzkopf, Czech Republic's Eliska Klucinova, Ukraine's Lyudmyla Yosypenko, Poland's Karolina Tyminska and Russia's Marina Goncharova.
The 2009 European Athletics Indoor Championships pentathlon gold medallist was Russia's Anna Bogdanova.
In the event that some of the above athletes decline their invitation (e.g. Barcelona bronze medallist Oeser has said that she will just concentrate on the long jump this winter), there will be a reserve invited before the end of the year to compete in Paris.