Berlin, Germany - Irina Mikitenko and Sabrina Mockenhaupt were named to the German Marathon team for the 12th IAAF World Championships in Athletics, Berlin Germany (15 to 23 August). The German federation, Deutscher Leichtathletik-Verband (DLV), today announced the first set of names for the road events.

Mikitenko, who is one of the home nation’s big medal hopes after breaking the German record (2:19:19) in at the 2008 Berlin Marathon and collecting a second London Marathon title in April, had always stressed that she wanted to run in the global championships.

But it was different with Mockenhaupt. The 28-year-old seemed to go for the Marathon after her win in Frankfurt in 2008 with a personal best of 2:26:22. But in the winter she decided to run the 10,000m at the World Championships. Now however she switched back to the Marathon, though she might still run the track event as well.

Melanie Kraus is number three on Germany’s women's Marathon team. The winner in Frankfurt 2007 and Düsseldorf 2008 had done well for her standards at the World Championships in 2007 (20th in Osaka) and the Olympics in 2008 (38th in Beijing). Rounding out the squad are Düsseldorf Marathon champion Susanne Hahn and Luminita Zaituc. Reigning European champion Ulrike Maisch was named as a reserve.

There were no surprises on the men’s side: André Pollmächer (PB: 2:13:09), Falk Cierpinski (2:13:30), Martin Beckmann (2:13:42) form the basis of the team with Stefan Koch (2:15:38) and Tobias Sauter (2:17:27) taking the fourth and fifth slots.

Two race walkers were also nominated for Berlin: André Höhne, who comes from Berlin, might go for a double with the 20k race staged on Saturday (15 Aug), the opening day of competition, and the 50k event six days later on Friday (21 Aug). Sabine Krantz so far is the only one for the women’s 20k race.

Jörg Wenig for the IAAF