Athletics fans and residents of the small spa city of Dudince in the south of Slovakia will have the chance to watch top race walkers from 25 countries compete at the IAAF Race Walking Challenge meeting on Saturday (21).

France s Olympic pole vault champion and world record-holder Renaud Lavillenie will compete at the Golden Gala Pietro Mennea on 4 June, the fourth leg of the 2015 IAAF Diamond League.

The 2015 IAAF Hammer Throw Challenge gets under way on Saturday (21) at the Melbourne IAAF World Challenge meeting, which also serves as the opening competition of that series.

If it s March and it s Melbourne, notable visitors to Australia s sporting capital are likely to find themselves posed alongside one of two props a Formula 1 racer or an Australian Rules footballer.

Athletics Kenya selectors have made their final choices for the IAAF World Cross Country Championships, Guiyang 2015.

The world s two leading one-lap runners will go head to head for the first time in 2015 at the Shanghai IAAF Diamond League meeting on 17 May.

Bronze medallist in 2013 and silver medallist in 2010, Eritrea s Teklemariam Medhin hopes to complete the set at this month s IAAF World Cross Country Championships, Guiyang 2015.

Bernard Koech crossed the finish-line in second place at last year s NN Marathon Rotterdam. On 12 April he will be back at the IAAF Gold Label Road Race in the hope of improving on that performance.

Caroline Chepkwony hopes to gain revenge when she returns to the Vienna City Marathon to compete against defending champion Anna Hahner at the IAAF Gold Label Road Race on 12 April.

Olympic 800m champion David Rudisha, world high jump champion Bogdan Bondarenko and European indoor 400m champion Pavel Maslak are among the first athletes signed up to compete at the Golden Spike IAAF World Challenge meeting in Ostrava on 26 May.