2004 IAAF World Indoor Championships

The 10th IAAF World Indoor Championships in Athletics under the auspices of the International Association of Athletics Federations were held in the Budapest Arena, Hungary between March 5 and March 7, 2004.

It was the second visit of the championships to Budapest having previously visited there 15 years earlier in 1989.

The newly built 13,000 capacity arena was built on the site of a former stadium that was destroyed by fire in 1999.

This was to be the last World Indoor Championships where the 200 m. would be contested as due to the tight bends involved in running indoors any athlete drawn to run on an inside lane was given an enormous disadvantage.

Medal winners

Men: 60 m | 60 m hurdles | 200 m | 400 m | 800 m | 1,500 m | 3,000 m | 4 x 400 m relay | long jump | triple jump | high jump | pole vault | shot put | heptathlon Women: 60 m | 60 m hurdles | 200 m | 400 m | 800 m | 1,500 m | 3,000 m | 4 x 400 m relay | long jump | triple jump | high jump | pole vault | shot put | pentathlon__NOTOC__

Medal table by country

Gail Devers took her third 60 m gold, to add to her 60 m hurdles title won in 2003, ahead of Gevaert (Belgian record) who pipped Nestsiarenka to silver in a photo finish though both were given the same time. Other finalists were former bronze medalist Torri Edwards USA (4th), Muriel Hurtis France (5th in seasons best), Yuliya Tabakova Russia (6th), Christine Arron France (7th) and Natalya Safronnikova Russia (8th).

=Men's 60 m hurdles=

In a poor year for the event Demeritte improved on his third position from Birmingham in 2003 to take gold in a new Bahamian record of 20.66 seconds albeit the slowest winning time since 1991. No other competitor in the final could even raise themselves to a seasons best although there were national records in the heats for Heber Viera (21.36 s) of Uruguay, Marcelo Figueroa (22.8 s) El Salvador, Hamoud Abdallah Al-Dalhami (21.97 s) Oman and Russel Roman (23.68 s) of Palau though none of these athletes progressed through their respective rounds.

Women's 200 m

In a quickly run race Natalya took gold in a championship record of 50.19 seconds to retain her title with her two main challengers both running personal bests to claim the minor medals. The other finalists were Ionela Târlea ROM, Clay Julian USA and Fani Halkia GRE.

Men's 800 m

In a tactical ran race Korir, who had progressed from the qualifying round as a fastest loser, held off Heshko by just 3/100th's of a second with Rotich a further 1/2 second away in third. Rotich was only awarded the bronze 1 hour after the race when the athlete who had crossed the line in third place, Great Britain's Michael East, was disqualified for a pushing incident. Other finalists were Abdelkader Hachlaf Morocco (4th), James Thie Great Britain (5th), Miroslaw Formela Poland (6th) and José Redolat Spain (7th) and Youssef Baba Morocco (8th).

Women's 1,500 m

In the slowest women's 3,000 m the championship had seen, and 22 seconds slower than the quickest heat, 2003 bronze medalist Defar turned the tables on reigning champion Adere with Culpepper taking third. The other finalists were Spain's Marta Domínguez (4th), Great Britain's Joanne Pavey (5th), Yelena Zadorozhnaya, Russia (6th), Sabrina Mockenhaupt, Germany (7th), Ukraine's Maryna Dubrova (8th), Maria McCambridge, Ireland (9th), Belgian Veerle Dejaeghere (10th) and Galina Bogomolova (11th). Great Britain's Hayley Tullett had qualified for the final but did not start due to injury.

Men's 4 x 400 m relay race

Savanté Stringfellow jumped exactly the same distance, 8.40 m, as he had when taking silver at the 2001 outdoors championships but this time got his hands on a gold medal. The 2003 outdoor silver medalist Beckford again finished second with Russian Shkurlatov completing the podium line up. Romanian Bogdan Tarus (4th), Volodymyr Zyuskov, Ukraine (5th with a personal best), Great Britain's Chris Tomlinson set a national record finishing (6th), Sosunov Kirill, Russia (7th) and former five time champion Iván Pedroso could only manage 8th place.

Women's long jump

Lebedeva first qualifying jump put her through to the final where her second round jump of 15.25 m gave her a comfortable lead over the field. She then opted out of her third and fifth round jumps saving herself in case a big jump was required in the final round. Her nearest rival Aldama had recorded 14.90 m also in the second round to lie in silver medal position with Devetzí's fourth round 14.73 m giving her bronze. Tatyana decided to take her last jump in the knowledge that gold medal was hers and produced a world record jump of 15.36 m. She followed this up by winning the long jump also the following day. The other finalists were Trecia Smith (4th in a Jamaican record), Italy's Magdelin Martinez (5th), Françoise Mbango Etone of Cameroon (6th), Romania's Adelina Gavrila (7th), Olena Hovorova, Ukraine (8th), Mabel Gay, Cuba (9th), Baya Rahouli, Algeria (10th), Italy's Simona La Mantia (11th) and Natalya Safronova of Belarus (12th).

Men's high jump

In a below par pole vault Russian indoor national champion Pavlov took a surprise gold with a personal best of 5.80 m. followed by four athletes who all cleared 5.70 m. Ptácek took silver and Yurchenko bronze on countback ahead of Sweden's Patrik Kristiansson (4th), German Tim Lobinger (5th). 10 cm further behind were Italian Giuseppe Gibilisco (6th) and Romain Mesnil of France (7th). Netherland's Rens Blom failed to clear his opening height of 5.60 m. to finish in (8th).

Women's pole vault

In an amazing turn of events Ukrainian Vita Pavlysh finished first only to be stripped of her title when receiving a life time ban after testing positive for anabolic steroids again. This was a repeat of the events following the 1999 Indoor Championship when she had also taken the gold only for it to be taken away when she was given a two year ban for the same offence. This left Krivelyova to actually be awarded first place ahead of Cumbá and Kleinert. The other finalists were Krystyna Zabawska tantalisingly just 5 cm. back in 4th, China's Li Meiju (5th), Misleydis González of Cuba 6th, and two time silver medalist Nadzeya Astapchuk of Belarus 7th.

Men's heptathlon

With one event to go, Šebrle lay 32 points behind Clay, with Lobodin a further 168 points back in third. But despite a personal best in the 1,000 m. Clay trailed in a massive 50 seconds behind Roman. This handed the gold to the Czech to give him the title to add to the gold he had won in 2001. Clay held onto silver with Lobodin safely in third. In this invitation only event Kazakhstan's Dmitriy Karpov finished fourth ahead of reigning Olympic champion Erki Nool from Estonia (5th), Aleksandr Pogorelov of Russia (6th), former silver medalist Jón Arnar Magnússon of Iceland in (7th) and Ranko Leskovar of Slovenia in (8th).

Women's pentathlon

With the lowest ever winning number of points, Gomes, who had led from the third event held on from Dobrynska by 32 points with Lithuanian Skujyte a further 48 points behind in the bronze medal position. The second and third place finishers set national records as did Karin Ruckstuhl of Netherlands who was (4th). Belgium's Tia Hellebaut came (5th), Irina Butor of Belarus (6th), Larisa Netseporuk of Estonia (7th) with Kim Schiemenz of USA completing the line up in (8th) place.

External links

* [http://www.iaaf.org/WIC04/ IAAF Official website]