“We have confirmed the appointments of a great group that I am sure will make important contributions to the work and development of European Athletics over the next four years,” said Hansen.

“And I am pleased to say that we are sticking by our commitment to bring women into the governing structure of European Athletics and thereby set a strong example for our Member Federations and the clubs around Europe.”

Hansen had earlier announced that the number of commission positions filled by women had increased by six per cent to 25 per cent of the total.

Among the appointments are the Bulgarian sprinter Ivet Lalova and long-time British administrator Cherry Alexander.

Lalova, 31, is the tenth fastest woman in 100 metres history ,who finished fourth and fifth in the 100 and 200m respectively at the 2004 Athens Olympics before suffering a career-threatening injury in June 2005 when a random collision with another athlete during warm-up for a meeting in Athens broke her femur and put her out of the sport for two years.

She returned to run at the Beijing Olympics and, after moving to Italy to train in 2011 she won the European 100m title in 2012  before reaching the semi-finals at the London Olympics.

The following year she married Italian sprinter Simone Collio.

Lalova, Hanna-Maari Latvala of Finland, Isabelle Pedersen of Norway and  Dana Veldakova of Slovakia  were elected by their fellow athletes to the Athletes Commission at last summer’s European Athletics Championships in Zurich.

Alexander has been head of competition/international at UK Athletics since 1991, before which she was an events manager for Nova International, and a promotions manager for Nike UK.

She joins the Events and Competition Commission along with Galia Puhaleva of Bulgaria and Anna Ricardi of Italy.

Other appointments saw Ana Lukovic of Serbia and Charlotte Svensen of Norway added to the Member Federation Development Commission, while the Strategic Communications Commission  gains Olga Aksyonova  of Ukraine, Sylvia Barlag of the Netherlands, , Sirje Lippe of Estonia and Lithuania’s Ieva Staponkute.

Tia Kuuranne of Finland joins the Medical and Anti-Doping Commission.

 “European Athletics has been working to raise awareness and promote women leaders at all levels of our sport for some years through our Women’s Leadership Awards, a number of innovative seminars and other measures,” said Hansen.

“It was really gratifying to see how many federations responded to these efforts and saw fit to nominate women for positions.”

Pointing out that expert groups and project teams will be set up in the coming months to support the commissions, Hansen added, “even if we could not use everyone nominated by the federations right now, I am sure that both more men and more women will be asked to help us in these important roles quite soon.”

The review of the commission structure was one of the first items Hansen addressed with his new Executive Board following his election in April.

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