Never mind the competition he would face in Zurich, defending European decathlon champion Pascal Behrenbruch first has to worry about actually making the team, such is the strength of the event in his own country.
'We have a lot of pressure this season because last year we were so incredibly good with the results we had,” said Behrenbruch, 29. 'Germany was one of the strongest decathlon nations. We have more athletes over 8200 points than the United States.'
Top of that list is Michael Schrader, 26, who last summer won silver at the IAAF World Championships in Moscow with a personal best of 8670 points and the 13th best European performance of all time.
Behrenbruch is 23rd in those same rankings with 8558, a personal best he achieved on his way to gold at the European Athletics Championships in Helsinki in 2012.
Schrader is not the only domestic rival Behrenbruch needs to worry about.
Kai Kazmirek, 24, won European Athletics Under-23 gold in Tampere last July with 8366 while with 8488, Rico Freimuth, 26, finished second and just 26 points behind Behrenbruch in Ratingen last June.
But as he looks towards the Hypo-Meeting in Gotzis at the end of this month, Behrenbruch’s challenge is to take himself to a new level.
Speaking to leichtathletik.de, he said: 'You always have to look up. I am not talking about 8800 points but 8600 points would be a good result for now.'
The standard bearer for Germans to follow remains Jurgen Hingsen, the country’s greatest multi-eventer, whose national decathlon record of 8832 is still the fourth best by a European.
When he set it in Mannheim on June 9, 1984, it was a world record, a mark that lasted exactly two months before Great Britain’s Daley Thompson regained it with 8847 as he beat Hingsen at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles in one of the best competitions of all time.
Hingsen had twice previously held the record, with 8741 in 1982, and 8825 in 1983, on both occasions replacing Thompson.
When Behrenbruch won gold in Helsinki, he succeeded Romain Barras as European champion and this weekend the Frenchman is taking big steps towards his first decathlon since finishing 11th at the World Championships in Daegu in 2011.
Barras, 33, will take part in the shot put and pole vault at the Interclubs meeting in Dijon this weekend ahead of the decathlon in Millau next Saturday and Sunday.
His personal best remains the 8453 which brought him glory at the European Athletics Championships in Barcelona; 7820 is the qualifying standard for Zurich.