Toe injury rules 10,000m hope Pavey out of European Championships

Pavey has a toe injury which had improved during the team's pre-championship training camp in Portugal.

However, it has not improved sufficiently to give the Devon athlete enough quality training in order to compete in the 10,000 metres in Spain.

Pavey's absence is the latest series of injury problems for the British team, with the likes of Greg Rutherford, Goldie Sayers and Kelly Sotherton already absent from the championships.

UK Athletics head coach Charles van Commenee admitted earlier this month he would be "embarrassed" if Britain did not return from Spain with between 10-15 medals and the 52-year-old Dutchman will be hoping for no further injury problems before the action gets under way on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Jessica Ennis is confident she will be able to deal with the hype in the run-up to London 2012.

The world heptathlon champion is set to go into her home Olympics in two summers' time as the face of the Games and favourite for gold.

The pressure on the Sheffield athlete - who will be 26 in 2012 - will be the greatest in her whole career, but Ennis believes she will be able to handle it.

"On a smaller scale I experienced a bit of pressure going into the World Championships (in Berlin last year)," Ennis said.

"It will be on a much larger scale, but I think I'm quite mentally strong and I'll be able to deal with it quite well. I've got good people around me to help me deal with that pressure."

Ennis knows she can learn from former Olympic champions Carolina Kluft and Cathy Freeman, who successfully dealt with the pressure of competing as favourite in front of a home crowd.

Swedish heptathlete Kluft took European Championship gold in Gothenburg in 2006 and Freeman memorably won the Olympic 400 metre title in Sydney in 2000.

Ennis added: "Carolina Kluft's coach suggested talking to Carolina about the pressures of having a championship at home and being a favourite and there are suggestions about talking to Cathy Freeman about her experiences.

"I think they're all really good ideas so if those opportunities come around I'll definitely take them up on that and try and learn a little bit from what they went through."

London will be Ennis' first Olympics, having missed out on the 2008 Games in Beijing through a career-threatening triple stress fracture to her right foot .

And she feels that experience has left her better placed to deal with injury and illness ahead of 2012.

"I think before 2008 if I ever had to miss a week or two of training it sent me into pure panic mode," said Ennis, who will bid to add European Championship gold to her world title in Barcelona this week.

"I can always reflect back on the amount of time I had out in 2008 and compare it to that and always know it's never going to be that bad.

"When I had my virus (which ruled her out of last month's UK Championships) it was disappointing to miss the bits of training I'd planned to do and the competitions I'd hoped to take part in, but it still wasn't as bad as 2008 and I had that experience to reflect back on."