It is seven weeks this weekend until one of the biggest events of this summer’s track and field season - the European Athletics Team Championships.
As part of the build up to the sixth staging of the competition, we are running a series of profiles of some of the names who will be looking to make their mark at the Super League event in Cheboksary, Russia, and the First League in Heraklion, Greece, on June 20-21.
We begin with the defending Super League champions Germany, who regained the title as the host nation in Braunschweig last year.
Germany won 10 events on their way to victory and one of the first athletes to put maximum points on the board was shot-putter David Storl.
It is no wonder that David Storl is one of the finest track and field competitors in the world.
When the clock is turned back to the first time the sport globally heard about him, he provided an insight into the dedication that he put into achieving his goals.
'I train every day, twice a day,' said Storl, then a mere 16-year-old, speaking in the aftermath of winning the boys shot put gold at the World Youth Championships in Ostrava in 2007.
'I go to school at seven, I train from nine to 11, I have another training session in the afternoon from four to six and then back to school.'
Eight years on from that success, the first major triumph of his career, he now has eight more gold medals to look back on, the newest being his glory at the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Prague in March.
He is the defending world champion, an Olympic silver medallist and in the short life of the European Athletics Team Championships, one of the competition’s most consistent performers.
Nobody has been able to remove Storl, now 24, from first place at the last three championships.