A total of 217 men and 57 women, representing 38 European nations, will be chasing the coveted places during the 10 days of competition.

There are 10 weight categories for men, ranging from light flyweight up to super heavyweight, with the two finalists from each division receiving a Rio 2016 quota spot and the two losing semi-finalists taking part in a box-off for the third and final qualification place.

The women will compete in three weight categories, flyweight, lightweight and middleweight, with the two finalists in each class winning a Rio 2016 quota.

Great Britain are sending one of the strongest looking men’s squads to Samsun, led by World Series of Boxing (WSB) stars Muhammad Ali, Joe Cordina, Pat McCormack, Joshua Buatsi and Joe Joyce.

Azerbaijan also have a formidable looking line-up, including Teymur Mammadov and Mahammadrasul Majidov - London 2012 bronze medallists at heavyweight and super heavyweight respectively - and 2013 AIBA world bantamweight champion Javid Chalabiyev.

Ukraine has named a team packed full of AIBA Open Boxing, WSB and AIBA Pro Boxing talents, while hosts Turkey are expected to feature heavily in the latter stages. 

Also stepping into the ring in Samsun in pursuit of one of the sport’s most sought after prizes will be 2015 EUBC European Confederation champion Eimantas Stanionis of Lithuania, as well as Baku 2015 European Games bronze medallist Hamza Touba of Germany and APB boxer Serge Michel, also of Germany.

Balazs Bacskai, Hungary’s EUBC European Confederation champion and WSB boxer, is a strong favourite for the welterweight class.

Irish lightweight Katie Taylor is the stand-out name in the women’s draw with the reigning Olympic, world and European champion unbeaten in all competitions since 2011 and widely considered to be the best pound-for-pound female boxer on the planet.

While Taylor starts as favourite in the lightweight class, London 2012 flyweight champion Nicola Adams of Britain is the one to watch in her division and Dutch star Nouchka Fontijn is the frontrunner in the middleweight category. 

Seven other AIBA women’s world champions are also set to compete, including British middleweight Savannah Marshall, Bulgarian flyweight Stanimira Petrova, Russian flyweight Elena Saveleva, Russian middleweight Anastasiia Beliakova, Swedish middleweight Anna Laurell and Ukrainian middleweight Mariia Badulina-Bova.

The European Olympic Qualification Event comes just over a month before the 2016 Women’s World Boxing Championships, which are scheduled to take place in Kazakhstan's capital Astana from May 19 to 27.

The ninth edition of the Women’s World Boxing Championships will provide 12 of the 300-plus competing athletes with Olympic quota places for Rio de Janeiro later this year - four at each of the three Olympic weight classes; 51 kilograms, 60 kg and 75kg.

The tournament was originally due to take place from February 1 to 14, but an AIBA spokesperson told insidethegames in November it had been pushed back three months in order to give organisers more time to prepare.

If a boxer meets the qualification criteria at both the European qualifier and the World Championships, their place at the second event will take priority.

The spot they give up will then be given to the next highest-ranked athlete and if two competitors from the same country have earned their ticket to Rio 2016 in the same weight category, the respective National Federation will choose which boxer to send to the Brazilian city.