Gunnell booked in for Glasgow

Athletics

Sally Gunnell, the Olympic 400 metres hurdles champion, will run indoors for Britain against France at Glasgow's Kelvin Hall on 24 February.

Gunnell opens her brief indoor season at the IAAF Ricoh Tour meeting two weeks earlier as she makes her return from the Achilles injury which prevented her defending her world title in Gothenburg last summer.

The Kelvin Hall international will prepare the British team for the European Indoor Championship in Stockholm two weeks later. "The bulk of the team will already have been selected and are likely to take part," Tony Ward, the British Athletic Federation spokesman, said. "Add to that one or two who will be out to convince the selectors of their European potential, and we have the makings of a first-class competition."

Mel Neef, Britain's 400m No 1 last season, the sprinter Darren Braithwaite and the European hurdles medallist, Tony Jarrett, are also expected to take part. But a confrontation with Gunnell is not immediately ahead for Neef. The Scot will run over 200m at Kelvin Hall before switching to her premier distance, she hopes, in Stockholm.

Jonathan Edwards will have a chance to compete for the Golden Four jackpot next season. The men's triple jump has been named as one of the 10 disciplines in the Golden Four series of meetings, in Oslo, Zurich, Brussels and Berlin. The other men's events are 200m, 800m, 3,000-5,000m, 400m hurdles and discus; the women's events are high jump, 100m, 1500m and 100m hurdles.