Athletes began to arrive Friday on the eve of the European Athletics Golden Tracks.
The stars, including those who will be named the men’s and women’s European Athletes of the Year and Rising Stars, touched down in Baku, Azerbaijan, ahead of the televised awards on Saturday 11 October.
The Golden Tracks, the new name for the annual awards recognising the best European athletes, will be broadcast on national television and streamed live.
Azerbaijan public television channel iTV will produce a 45-minute programme from 20:00 local time (17:00 CET) that will be made available live to European Broadcasting Union members and streamed live at http://www.itv.az/.
European Athletics will not announce the winners until the evening gala at the Fairmont Hotel in the iconic Flame Towers.
The winners will each receive the new Golden Tracks trophies. The trophies are cubic monoliths made of a compact acrylic glass block in which a 3D golden European Athletics logo design has been encased.
The winning athletes were decided by counting votes from the fans, media, European Athletics Member Federations as well as an expert European Athletics panel, with the results from each group of voters counting for one quarter of the athlete's final score.
Dignitaries including European Athletics President Hansjörg Wirz, IAAF Vice Presidents Sergey Bubka and Sebastian Coe, Azerbaijan Athletics Federation President Chingiz Husseinzade and Azad Rahimov, Minister of Youth and Sports for Azerbaijan, will attend the awards.
The Golden Tracks will be co-compèred by Leyla Aliyeva and Andy Kay.
President Wirz said, 'With the Zurich 2014 European Athletics Championships and a number of world records set by Europeans during the season, it was another exciting and busy year for the sport on the continent.
'To be nominated for the Golden Tracks is a huge honour and one that is greatly valued by the athletes. Following the 20th anniversary of the European Athlete of the Year awards in 2013, we look forward to awarding future winning athletes the Golden Tracks in recognition of their outstanding efforts.
'However, I must stress that European Athletics has always held a very strong line against doping and any athlete who has previously served a two-year doping ban was omitted from the list of nominations.'