Australia has two defending world champions looking to defend their crowns — plus a host of other medal contenders when the World Athletics Championships get underway in Budapest, Hungary on Saturday evening.

With the Paris 2024 Olympics less than a year away, Australia's best are on a mission to test themselves in major competition against the world's finest to establish a baseline before they gear up for next year's Games.

With an Australian record 66 athletes set to compete, here's the top Aussies to keep an eye on over the next eight days.

High Jump: Eleanor Patterson, Nicola Olyslagers

Is the high jump Australia's best medal chance in Hungary?

Eleanor Patterson is one of Australia's two defending world champions at these Championships having won the title on countback in Oregon after both she and Ukraine's Yaroslava Mahuchikh both cleared 2.02 metres.

Her hopes of going back-to-back though have been hampered by a foot fracture that has seen her season best limited to 1.96m. 

Mahuchikh is ranked number one in the world by World Athletics — which seems a touch odd given the biggest threat to Patterson's title might just be fellow Australian Nicola Olyslagers (née McDermott).

Olyslagers has the world's leading leap this season of 2.02m — 1cm higher than anyone else and equal to the Australian record she shares with Patterson.

In fact, the 26-year-old from New South Wales has been almost unbeatable this season, winning nine of her ten competitions — and finishing second in the one she didn't win on countback.

That puts her firmly in the box seat to claim a maiden world title, but hopes of an Aussie 1-2 are still on.

Javelin: Kelsey-Lee Barber, Mackenzie Little

The first ever back-to-back world champion in women's javelin history, Kelsey-Lee Barber might have her work cut out to make it a sensational hat-trick in Hungary.

Barber is only ranked tenth in the world this year with a throw of 62.54 metres and was upstaged by Mackenzie Little — who she pipped to gold at the Commonwealth Games — in the Australian Championships in Brisbane in April.

Little, incidentally, has the third-furthest throw of the season at 65.70m, and the Commonwealth Games silver medallist has three of the top nine throws in the world this year.

That makes the 26-year-old former World Youth champion among the favourites for gold.

However, not many people gave Barber a chance heading into Oregon last time around, so writing the veteran Australian off would be foolish in the extreme.

Pole Vault: Nina Kennedy, Kurtis Marschall

American Katie Moon is the vaulter to beat this season, looking to add to the title she won under her maiden name of Nageotte on home soil in Oregon last year.

But Commonwealth champion Nina Kennedy has not been far off this season, ranked fourth overall, leaving her with a shout of adding to the bronze she won in Oregon.

She has one competition win to her name this season as well as a third.

On the men's side, two-time Commonwealth Games champion Kurtis Marschall sits tantalisingly close to breaking the six-metre barrier with a personal best of 5.95m set this year in July.

Barring disaster, Swede Armand Duplantis will likely win gold, but a medal is definitely within Marschall's reach.

800m: Peter Bol, Joseph Deng

The biggest story of the year in Australian athletics was the drug testing saga surrounded Peter Bol.

The fourth-placed finisher at the 2020 Olympics was notified by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) of a positive test result for synthetic EPO in January.

A subsequent analysis of his B-sample returned an "atypical finding", meaning it was neither positive or negative and he was finally cleared by Sport Integrity Australia in July.

It's hard to see how having this saga hang over him would not have detrimentally impacted Bol heading into these championships, but a season best of 1 minute, 44.29 seconds still keeps him in the mix for a hugely competitive field dominated this season by athletes from Kenya and Algeria at the sharp end of the rankings.

Eleven men have ran sub-1:44 this year though, including 25-year-old Oceania record holder Joseph Deng.

Discus: Matthew Denny

The men's discus field is one of the most fiercely competitive in World Athletics at the moment, with challengers coming from all corners of the globe to be contenders.

The top five men in the world this year are separated by less than a metre-and-a-half, with Samoa's Alex Rose the fifth man this year to throw over 70 metres — the first time that's happened in 40 years.

Commonwealth champion Matt Denny has proven he can mix it with the world's best — his fourth-place finish at the 2021 Olympics evidence enough that he has what it takes.

With a second-placed finish at July's Diamond League meeting in London, Denny has decent form too, but he will need to improve his season's best of 66.84m considerably should he want to be in medal contention.

1,500m: Linden Hall, Jess Hull, Abbey Caldwell

Australia's middle distance running is soaring to new heights, matching the pace at which the discipline is surging forward around the globe.

There is a risk that the 1,500m is already considered a foregone conclusion though given the sensational form of Faith Kipyegon.

The 29-year-old Kenyan has blown just about everyone away this year and presents an enormous chance at winning the 1,500/5,000m double at these championships — with the latter race promising to be one of the great events in athletics history given the talent on display.