Kluft, Isinbayeva take centre stage

Olympic champions Carolina Kluft and Yelena Isinbayeva command centre stage on the first day of the European indoor athletics championships today, although the latter will make a fleeting appearance only.

Kluft, the heptathlon gold medallist in Athens, will be in action throughout the opening day of the three-day competition. The effervescent Swede competes in the pentathlon, the indoor version of the multi-discipline event, starting with the 60 metres hurdles and finishing more than 10 hours later with the 800.

By contrast Isinbayeva, the women's athlete of the year in 2004 with three world indoor pole vault records already to her name this year, will step inside the Madrid Sports Hall only long enough to ensure she qualifies for Sunday's final.

The pentathlon is the only medal event scheduled for today which is devoted otherwise to qualifying for the weekend's 27 finals.

Kluft, the Olympic, world and European heptathlon champion, revealed last month that she plays an active part in fostering children in Africa who remain unaware of her fame in the athletics world.

"I tell them I like to run and jump and they tell me they like to play soccer," she said. "I would rather have world peace than a world record because what I do as an athlete isn't really important.

"I don't like the world as it is now. Many things can be done to make it a better place."

Isinbayeva started the year by setting a world record 4.87 metres at the Sergei Bubka meeting in the great male vaulter's home town of Donetsk in Ukraine.

She extended the mark by a centimetre in Birmingham, England, last month and then leaped 4.89 in Lievin, France, last Saturday before making a creditable but unsuccessful attempt at breaking the five-metre barrier when the bar was raised to 5.05. The only question on Sunday would appear to be her victory margin and what height she attempts to clear next.

Isinbayeva is the only one of Russia's six Olympic track and field champions to make the trip to Madrid, although chief coach Valeriy Kulichenko is still targeting 15 medals at the weekend, including five golds.

Spain field their second largest team ever in a European indoor championships as Madrid steps up its campaign to host the 2012 Olympics.

Their team includes Daniel Canal, European leader over the men's 400 metres this year, and European outdoor 1,500 silver medallist Reyes Estevez.

Manuel Martinez defends the men's shot put title and Glory Alozie, the European 100 metres hurdles gold medallist, competes over the 60 metres hurdles.

A third female athlete, whose achievements in Athens, seized the popular imagination as much as Kluft and Isinbayeva, will not be competing because of injury.

Briton Kelly Holmes, who won the 800 and 1500 in Athens at the age of 34, withdrew from the championships with a hamstring problem.