With just one day to go until the opening of the 11th IAAF World Championships, Athletics Australia has named seasoned campaigner Bronwyn Thompson and Victorian big man Scott Martin (pictured) as captains of the Australian team in Osaka.

The Commonwealth Games champions will lead Australia into battle against more than 3200 competitors representing 203 nations.

Martin, 24, who will compete in the qualification rounds and hopefully the final of the shot put tomorrow, expressed surprise and excitement at his appointment.

“I’m very honoured and pretty surprised seeing it’s my first World Championships,” he said. “I hadn’t even considered the possibility of being named captain.

“As I hope to be around throwing for the next 10 years, it will be a very good learning experience for me to lead my first team.

“Competing so early in the competition, I will hopefully set the tone for the rest of the championships and help the others out over the remaining eight days.”

Naturally, the younger athletes in the squad including Vicky Parnov (16), Dani Samuels (19), Jeff Riseley (20) and Chris Noffke (19) will look to their captains for guidance and inspiration.

Thompson, 28, will be able to share her extensive experiences of two Olympic Games, two Commonwealth Games and a World Championships, having competed in Paris in 2003.

The Queensland long jumper is scheduled to compete in the qualification round on Sunday (August 26) and the final on Tuesday (August 28).

The action kicks off first thing tomorrow morning with the men’s marathon which will be broadcast live on SBS.

The first Australian to compete will be Martin who takes to the field at 11am AEST.