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Marathon runners Georgina Schwiening and Jonny Mellor are the first members of England's athletics squad for July's Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.

Mellor won the men's race at April's Manchester marathon, which served as a Team England trial.

Former world junior duathlon champion Schwiening came third in the women's race in a qualifying time of two hours 31 minutes and 37 seconds.

England's Para-athletics team will be named later this month.

Mellor and Schwiening's athletics team-mates will be announced in June.

Mellor anticipates a hotly-contested 26.2 miles over a course that comprises two laps of a route heading south towards Bourneville before a four-mile loop around Birmingham city centre.

Kenya's team includes Jonathan Korir, who finished fourth at the 2019 Berlin marathon before helping pace compatriot Eliud Kipchoge to his ground-breaking sub-two hour marathon in Vienna the following month.

There is also expected to be a strong challenge from the other home nations with Scotland's Callum Hawkins, who collapsed while leading in the final stages of the Gold Coast 2018 race, among Mellor's domestic rivals.

"It is the Commonwealth Games, it is going to be a strong field no matter what," Mellor, 35, told ´óÏó´«Ã½ Sport.

"You have to respect all your rivals, it is going to be a really good domestic field, with some interesting names with the likes of [Wales'] Dewi [Griffiths] and Callum who haven't done a marathon as recently.

"The Kenyans always send a strong team, the Ugandans will be good.

"I am hoping for a tactical race with a lot of guys in the shake-up come the end. But just to be on that start line with these guys is a great honour, and I am really looking forward to it."

Schwiening, 27 focused on marathon running after Covid-related travel restrictions and disruption made it difficult to get to duathlon races on continental Europe.

"I have been thinking about it almost every waking moment," she said of her selection.

"It is the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning. It has been difficult keeping it quiet until the announcement.

"Competing at the home games, I see it as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity; having all my friends and family there - the marathon is even on a Saturday so they don't have to take a day off work - I couldn't imagine a better race."

The Commonwealth Games run from 28 July to 8 August, with the marathon held on 30 July.