15th March 2013 09:11
Shot put (Saturday)
What a way to open proceedings in Castellon in a shot put with a field of the highest class.
It is only two weeks since the European Athletics Indoor Championships and the top three from Göteborg will make their 2013 outdoor debuts determined to carry on where they left off in Sweden.
When the silver and bronze medallists from the European Athletics Championships in Helsinki are added to the mix, the intensity of the event grows even more.
Gold seemed a long way off for Germany's Christina Schwanitz in Göteborg as she prepared for her final effort.
The lead was held by Russian Yevgeniya Kolodo with 19.04m before Schwanitz produced 19.25m to take the title with Belarusian Alena Kopets in third with 18.85m.
Fourth in Sweden with a season's best of 18.37m was Italy's Chiara Rosa - no podium this time unlike the summer when she won bronze in Helsinki with 18.47m as Russian Irina Tarasova took silver with 18.91m.
Gold went the way of Nadine Kleinert won that event with 19.18m and the German is the only absentee from this weekend's event having all the medallist from the last two major European Athletics Championships - outdoors and indoors.
The women's Under-23 competition also takes place on Saturday and of the 10 athletes in the field, only four have competed in 2013. But the standards they have set themselves have been impressive with Britain's Sophie McKinna (16.38m), Estonia's Linda Treiel (15.81m), Ukrainian Viktoriya Klochko (15.52i) and Italy's Francesca Stevanato (15.34) all achieving personal bests with those marks this year.
Discus (Sunday)
In 2007 in Yalta and then three years later in Arles, Germany's Nadine Muller won the discus at this European Cup Winter Throwing.
Her victory in the second of those events came with 64.30m which was a personal best at the time but much has happened since then.
She has taken that mark to 68.89m and enters this competition looking for the title for a third time on the back of a brilliant 2012 where she won silver at the European Athletics Championships in Helsinki.
The World silver medallist from Daegu in 2011, Muller, 27, from Leipzig, has been one of the most consistent discus throwers in world athletics for almost a decade now after she first announced herself on the major stage with silver at the European Junior Championships in Tampere in 2003.
Last summer, a throw of 65.41m brought silver in Helsinki as Croatia's Sandra Perkovic won gold with 67.62m. In third was Natalya Semenova with 62.91m and the Ukrainian is in the field in Spain.
And while Muller's personal best is the furthest any of the 14 competitors have thrown, the next best is Romania's Nicoleta Grasu, now 41, whose 68.80m was achieved back in 1999 for an athlete who is one of great stalwarts of the event, having finished 13th at the Olympic Games in Barcelona in 1992.
Irina Rodrigues, of Portugal, will be looking to build on her good start to the year in the Under-23 competition. She has thrown 59.76m this year to go second on the European Athletics Under-23 rankings. Germany's Anna Ruh is top with 61.38m but she is not in Spain.
Hammer (Sunday)
The women's hammer will see the participation of Tatyana Lysenko, the Olympic and World champion, who three years ago in Arles was third with 69.11m.
It will not be easy for the rest, with Lysenko such a dominant force on the international stage.
Her World glory in Daegu came with a throw of 77.13m and then her Olympic triumph was achieved with 78.18m.
Her victory in the Russian Winter Throwing Championships in February was sealed with 74.07m, the second best throw by a European this winter.
Germany's Betty Heidler tops the European Athletics rankings with 75.80m but she is not in Spain. Yet that mark is one target for the rest to aim towards and it is a strong field.
The biggest threat to Lysenko should be her Russian teammate Anna Bulgakova, who was second behind her in those throwing championships last month with 72.28m.
Last summer Bulgakova won bronze at the European Athletics Championships in Helsinki, just in front of Germany's Kathrin Klass who is sure to be among the leaders in Castellon.
The event also includes Sophie Hitchon, 21, the rising star of the sport in Britain.
She is the national record holder with 71.98m in a career where she won the World Junior title in 2010.
Her best of the year is 70.34m which puts her top of the European Athletics Under-23 rankings but she will be competing in the senior event on Sunday.
The category, though, may gave some indications as to who to watch out for at the European Athletics U23 Championships in Tampere in July with Slovenian Barbara Spiler's 66.86m making her the best in the event this weekend on 2013 distances.
Javelin (Saturday)
When Vira Rebryk picked up the javelin to prepare for round five of the competition at the European Athletics Championships in Helsinki last year, she was in third position.
But seconds later, not only had broken her country's national record, her throw of 66.86m had taken her to gold.
Rebryk, the European junior champion from Hengelo in 2007, had fulfilled all that promise by transferring her glory to the senior international stage.
But then she failed to take her Helsinki form into the Olympic Games in London where she was only 19th in qualifying, reaching a best of 58.97m.
Third behind her in Finland had been Germany's Linda Stahl with 63.69m and she maintained that throwing to also win Olympic bronze with a season's best of 64.91m.
A duel between Rebryk and Stahl will make fascinating viewing in Castellon.
New year, new hope for them both and with the World Championships in Moscow as their major focus, the duo may well find themselves on top of the European rankings by the end of the day.
At the moment the lists are led by Rebryk's fellow Ukrainian, Hanna Habina, 21, with 60.98m, and she will be keeping an interested eye on the senior event as she competes in the under-23 javelin here. Habina should take all the beating in that.
Read the Men's preview.