The men’s high jump at the Championships, due to take place at the Khalifa Stadium from September 27 to October 6, will see Barshim defending the title he won in London two years ago against a field likely to include two of his key rivals, Bohdan Bondarenko of Ukraine and Gianmarco Tamberi of Italy.

Sidelined for much of last year with an ankle injury, the 27-year-old Doha-born Qatari, whose best of 2.43 metres has him second on the all-time list behind world record holder Javier Sotomayor, is scheduled to return to action in the London leg of the IAAF Diamond League series on July 20.

Bondarenko, the 2013 world champion who topped 2.42m in 2014, and Italy's Tamberi, who cleared a personal best of 2.39m to win the 2016 world indoor title, are both running into form after recovering from injury.

The Ukraine jumper tops this year’s world rankings with the 2.31m he cleared in Rome to earn his first IAAF Diamond League this season.

He added a second Diamond League win in Rabat last Sunday when he cleared 2.28m before speaking with some excitement about his upcoming challenge at the European Games in Minsk.

Qatar’s other high flyer, Saudi Arabia-born Samba, is speeding towards what could be a landmark home victory in the men’s 400 metres hurdles, which he totally dominated last year.

The final on September 30 could become the stuff of legend if he can arrive there fit and well in company with two other men who have taken huge strides in the event in the last couple of years - Norway’s world champion Karsten Warholm and Rai Benjamin of the United States.

Samba ended 2018 as the second fastest man of all time at 46.98sec - just 0.20 seconds off Kevin Young’s 1992 world record - and leads with year’s world list with his 47.27 clocking in Shanghai last month.

Benjamin finished the season equal third fastest with compatriot Ed Moses after his 47.02 timing at the National Collegiate Athletic Association Championships, and recorded 47.58 to win in Rome earlier this month.

Warholm, meanwhile, set a European record of 47.33 in Oslo earlier this month as Samba was obliged to sit out the race following a bout of bursitis.

The men’s 400m on the flat also promises to be a marquee event at the Championships given the potential presence of the rising US talent Michael Norman, who ran a 43.45 personal best in his season’s opener in April, and South Africa’s Wayde van Niekerk, the reigning world and Olympic champion and world record holder, returning to action this season after seriously injuring his anterior cruciate ligament at the end of 2017.

In the women's sprints, European 100m and 200m champion Dina Asher-Smith of Britain has made a bold start to the season with respective bests of 10.94 and 22.18.

But Jamaica's 2016 double Olympic champion Elaine Thompson, who had a relatively quiet 2018, offered evidence of her renewed ambition by winning the Rome 100m in 10.89.

Anita Wlodarcyzk of Poland, returning from an ankle injury,  will seek a fifth world hammer title in Qatar, and Czech javelin world champion Barbora Špotáková, back in action after taking 2018 off for her second maternity leave, will seek a fourth title aged 38.