The Herald has analysed the effective world lists – rankings of those who will actually be present in Berlin where the event opens a week on Saturday. For example, 26 athletes have run faster than British 100m No.1 Simeon Williamson this year, but of these, only 14 will compete in Germany. A nation can enter three per event, or four if a defending world champion is included, as is the case with Tyson Gay in the 100 and 200m.

The 48 British entries for individual events include only two women and three men who are ranked in the world top 10 this year – hinting at the doomsday scenario of just five individual finalists.

Ennis and 800m runner Jenny Meadows (seventh) are the only women in the top 10, although the two relay squads rank fourth and seventh.

World record-holder Paula Radcliffe, who hasn’t raced a marathon since last November when she won New York, has yet to decide whether she will be fit to compete. She has won eight of her 10 marathons and took the world title in 2005, but did not defend in Osaka two years ago. She was ranked ninth in the world last year.

Olympic 400m champion Christine Ohuruogu, who will be defending the title she won in Japan two years ago, is an ominously lowly 14th in her event with 51.14.World leader Sanya Richards (49.23), confirmed in the US team yesterday, has displayed unprecedented consistency. She has been under 50 seconds five times this summer.

The top-10 ranked GB men are: Olympic silver medallist Philips Idowu (triple jump, fifth), Andy Turner (110m hurdles, sixth), and David Greene (400m hurdles, eighth). The men’s 4 x 100 and 4 x 400m relay squads are sixth and third respectively.

Notwithstanding a significant casualty list, less than three years before London 2012 this analysis makes chilling reading. The respected specialist magazine, Athletics Weekly, this week has taken a similar look, though without reviewing every single UK competitor.

They suggest a bleak Berlin may be ahead for Britain with possibly the worst showing by a British team since the World event was inaugurated, in Helsinki in 1983. From 1997 onwards, in six editions of the global event, Britain has failed to win gold twice, and has

collected just four titles.

In addition to the doubts over the form of Radcliffe and Ohuruogu, a by no means all-inlusive casualty list includes reigning World heptathlon

bronze medallist Kelly Sotherton, Olympic bronze medal 400m hurdler Tasha Danvers, Olympic high jump finalists Martyn Bernard and sprinter Jeanette Kwakye, sixth-place Olympic marathon finisher Mara Yamauchi, former Commonwealth long jump champion Nathan Morgan, defending 400m silver

medallist Nicola Sanders, and 400m runner Tim Benjamin who has been forced to retire through injury.

Scotland’s sprint hurdlers, World indoor finalist Allan Scott and Commonwealth runner-up Chris Baillie have been largely inactive due to injury problems, and Lee McConnell, a fixture in GB teams at 400m, has made it only in the relay after a fall down stairs damaged her back.

Fourth-placed Olympian Lisa Dobriskey only just made it back to gain selection for the 1500m, and Goldie Sayers also made it back in the javelin at the final fling.

As head coach Charles van Commenee told me following the trials last month: “We have too many fragile athletes.”

The US team announced yesterday included eight reigning champions, headed by Gay, who defends the 100 and 200m titles against

Jamaica’s Olympic champion Usain Bolt.

They also have Bernard Lagat, the former Kenyan who made history with a unique 1500 and 5000m double in Osaka two years ago. He showed his current form with victory in the Emsley Carr Mile at Crystal Palace last month.

Allyson Felix – still just 23 – bids for a third successive 200m title as world leader with 21.88 last weekend in Stockholm.

Jeremy Wariner (400m), Keron Clement (400m hurdles), Michelle Perry (100m hurdles), Brad Walker (pole vault) and Reese Hoffa (shot) also defend titles they won in Osaka.

The US team, contesting a major international championship in this Olympic stadium for the first time since Jesse Owens’s four gold

medals in 1936, will wear a uniform featuring the initials of the legendary Owens.

There will be a special meeting of the families of Owens and his German rival, Luz Long. Owens’s grand-daughter and Long’s son will present the long jump medals.

The families have kept in touch for 73 years, but this is the first time since 1936 that a member of Owens’s family has returned to Berlin where Long gave Owens sound advice when he was on the brink of failing to qualify for the long jump final.

Long, a lawyer, died of war wounds in Sicily, in 1943; Owens of lung cancer in 1980.