• Athletics

Ennis and Idowu have inspired Team GB - Dobriskey

Team GB 1500 metres runner Lisa Dobriskey believes the success of Jessica Ennis and Phillips Idowu has inspired other British athletes to keep improving ahead of the World Championships in Daegu.

Dobriskey, who qualified for the meeting in South Korea after finishing second behind Hannah England at the UK Trials & Championships earlier this month, is hopeful of finishing inside the medals when the Championships begin next weekend.

The 27-year-old knows that the worldwide standard in almost every event has risen in recent years, but believes members of Team GB have helped spur each other on to meet the challenge and be as competitive as possible.

"I feel that the team is just going from strength to strength," Dobriskey told ESPN. "The qualifying standards for events have been raised and everyone here has met those standards.

"You can see it among individual events - for example Hannah and myself - we are not just having to meet the times but we're having to fight one another, and the girls behind us are fighting even harder, and that seems to be happening across the board."

Dobriskey believes heptathlete Ennis and triple jumper Idowu can be credited for much of that - with their success at the very highest level providing the inspiration for everyone else to go out and try and achieve the same thing.

"Everybody here deserves to be here and is a world-class athlete," she said. "We have such strong role models before us, and even on the team currently - for example Jess and Phillips - and we all just aspire to achieve what they have achieved and they've shown it is possible."

Meanwhile, sprinter Marlon Devonish is hopeful he can replicate his achievements at the World Championships four years ago - where he made the 100m final.

"It's going to be a lot more difficult but I think I am capable of making the final again - and once you're in the final anything can happen," Devonish said. "The crowd can overwhelm a lot of athletes and that's where I can draw on my experience and hopefully run the perfect race."

It is the 4x100m relay where Devonish and his team-mates have the better chance of claiming a medal, however. The 35-year-old believes the squad have the speed and technique to contend but is under no illusions about the strength of their rivals.

"I think we have a very good team, and we're very confident," he said. "But it's going to be difficult. There's the United States and Jamaica - they're our main competitors - Trinidad & Tobago and us. The medals are going to be between those four teams, I think.

"The one thing that is slightly different is that our flat speeds are a little bit faster ... so if we can have our flat speeds on top of our changeovers it should put us in a good position to win a medal."

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