12th IAAF World Indoor Championships
Dates	7 March–9 March
Host city	Valencia, Spain
Venue	Luis Puig Palace
Events	26
Participation	574 athletes from 147 nations
← Moscow 2006 Doha 2010 →

The 2008 IAAF World Indoor Championships in Athletics were held at the Luis Puig Palace in Valencia, Spain, March 7–9, 2008.

Bid

Valencia was announced the winning bidder by the IAAF on November 13, 2005 at an IAAF Council meeting in Moscow, Russia.^[1]

Results

Men

2004 | 2006 | 2008 | 2010 | 2012

Event	Gold		Silver		Bronze
60 m	Olusoji A. Fasuba  Nigeria	6.51 (WL)	Dwain Chambers  Great Britain	6.54 (PB)	Not awarded
			Kim Collins  Saint Kitts and Nevis	6.54 (SB)
	Fasuba's win became the first indoor short dash World Championship title for Africa
400 m	Tyler Christopher  Canada	45.67 (WL)	Johan Wissman  Sweden	46.04 (PB)	Chris Brown  Bahamas	46.26 (SB)
	Tyler Christopher stayed behind Wissman and Brown until the final homestraight, when he sped to victory off the last bend.
800 m	Abubaker Kaki Khamis  Sudan	1:44.81 (WL)	Mbulaeni Mulaudzi  South Africa	1:44.91 (NR)	Yusuf Saad Kamel  Bahrain	1:45.26 (AR)
	Abubaker Kaki Khamis led from the start in attempt to win and held off the fast approaching Mbulaeni Mulaudzi by a tenth of a second to win his first major international title at just 18!
1500 m	Deresse Mekonnen  Ethiopia	3:38.23	Daniel Kipchirchir Komen  Kenya	3:38.54	Juan Carlos Higuero  Spain	3:38.82
	Mekonnen was initially disqualified for stepping on the inside of the track, and Spaniard Arturo Casado was named as the bronze medallist, but the Ethiopian was reinstated. Higuero's was the first medal of the championships for the host country.
3000 m	Tariku Bekele  Ethiopia	7:48.23	Paul Kipsiele Koech  Kenya	7:49.05	Abreham Cherkos  Ethiopia	7:49.96
	Tariku Bekele won his first World title, succeeding his brother as 3000 m champion, who had won the title at the previous championships.
60 m hurdles	Liu Xiang  China	7.46 (SB)	Allen Johnson  United States	7.55	Evgeniy Borisov  Russia	7.60
					Staņislavs Olijars  Latvia	7.60 (SB)
	Liu Xiang and Dayron Robles, the favorites for this event, were expected to battle for the gold, but Robles was eliminated in the heats after mistakenly believing there was a false start.
4 × 400 m relay	United States (USA) James Davis Jamaal Torrance Greg Nixon Kelly Willie Joel Stallworth*	3:06.79 (WL)	Jamaica (JAM) Michael Blackwood Edino Steele Adrian Findlay DeWayne Barrett Aldwyn Sappleton*	3:07.69 (SB)	Dominican Republic (DOM) Arismendy Peguero Carlos Santa Pedro Mejía Yoel Tapia	3:07.77 (NR)
High jump	Stefan Holm  Sweden	2.36	Yaroslav Rybakov  Russia	2.34	Andra Manson  United States	2.30 (SB)
					Kyriakos Ioannou  Cyprus	2.30
	Stefan Holm regained his title from Rybakov who won in 2006 to become 4-time world indoor champion. Ioannou earned Cyprus its first ever medal at an Indoor World Championship.
Pole vault	Yevgeniy Lukyanenko  Russia	5.90 (WL)	Brad Walker  United States	5.85 (PB)	Steven Hooker  Australia	5.80 (SB)
	insert write up:
Long jump	Godfrey Khotso Mokoena  South Africa	8.08 (SB)	Chris Tomlinson  Great Britain	8.06	Mohamed Salman Al-Khuwalidi  Saudi Arabia	8.01
	Tomlinson's 8.06 held the lead from the first round, until the fifth when Mokoena reached 8.08, which Tomlinson was then unable to match. Mokoena's result was the shortest winning jump in the history of the World Indoor Championships.
Triple jump	Phillips Idowu  Great Britain	17.75 (NR)(WL)	Arnie David Giralt  Cuba	17.47 (PB)	Nelson Évora  Portugal	17.27
	Idowu's winning jump came in the second round, and set a new British and Commonwealth record.
Shot put	Christian Cantwell  United States	21.77	Reese Hoffa  United States	21.20	Tomasz Majewski  Poland	20.93 (NR)
	Hoffa set a 21.49m best at the qualification. Cantwell's victory put was the 4th best in the history of Indoor World Championships.
Heptathlon (60 m, LJ, SP, HJ, 60 m H, PV, 1000 m)	Bryan Clay  United States	6371 (WL)	Andrei Krauchanka  Belarus	6234 (NR)	Dmitriy Karpov  Kazakhstan	6131
	(6.71 - 7.75 - 16.21 - 2.09 - 7.86 - 5.00 - 2:55.64)		(7.19 - 7.63 - 14.29 - 2.15 - 8.11 - 5.30 - 2:46.49)		(7.20 - 7.31 - 16.19 - 2.06 - 8.15 - 5.20 - 2:47.45)
	Clay dominated from early on, leading by 170 points after the first two events. Clay was on world record pace as the first day came to a close. Clay fell short of the world record but held on for a comfortable win, taking first in four of seven events.
WR world record | AR area record | CR championship record | GR games record | NR national record | OR Olympic record | PB personal best | SB season best | WL world leading (in a given season)

Women

2004 | 2006 | 2008 | 2010 | 2012

Event	Gold		Silver		Bronze
60 m	Angela Williams  United States	7.06 (WL)	Jeanette Kwakye  Great Britain	7.08 (NR)	Tahesia Harrigan  British Virgin Islands	7.09 (NR)
	After several seasons of injury, Angela Williams finally wins her first world title in personal best time. Ene Franca Idoko of Nigeria was a favorite, but she stumbled out of the blocks, finishing 7th.
400 m	Olesya Zykina  Russia	51.09 (WL)	Natalya Nazarova  Russia	51.10 (SB)	Shareese Woods  United States	51.41 (PB)
	Olesya Zykina won the event, which was the closest women's World Indoor 400 m final in history, with Nazarova second for a 1–2 win for Russia.
800 m	Tamsyn Lewis  Australia	2:02.57	Tetiana Petlyuk  Ukraine	2:02.66	Maria de Lurdes Mutola  Mozambique	2:02.97
	Tamsyn Lewis surprised by winning her first World title, breaking Mutola's hopes of winning her eighth title on her last competitive year. Home hopeful, Mayte Martínez was a disappointing fourth.
1500 m	Gelete Burka  Ethiopia	3:59.75 (AR)	Maryam Yusuf Jamal  Bahrain	3:59.79 (AR)	Daniela Yordanova  Bulgaria	4:04.19 (NR)
	Yelena Soboleva led for the most of the fast race to win in a new world record time, breaking her own one-month-old world record by 0.34 s. Soboleva was later disqualified for doping along with second placed Yuliya Fomenko, and her world record was rescinded.
3000 m	Meseret Defar  Ethiopia	8:38.79	Meselech Melkamu  Ethiopia	8:41.50	Mariem Alaoui Selsouli  Morocco	8:41.66
	Meseret Defar completed a hat-trick of World Indoor 3000 m titles in her kick-finish, which her countrywoman Meselech Melkamu was unable to respond to.
60 m hurdles	LoLo Jones  United States	7.80	Candice Davis  United States	7.93	Anay Tejeda  Cuba	7.98
	After new World record holder Swede Susanna Kallur injured a hamstring during her warm-up for the semi-final and pulled out of the competition, Lolo Jones became the favorite, and did indeed win by a fairly large margin. Spanish Josephine Onyia, the home crowd's hope, tripped over the fifth hurdle to finish last.
4 × 400 m relay	Russia (RUS) Yuliya Gushchina Tatyana Levina Natalya Nazarova Olesya Zykina	3:28.17 (WL)	Belarus (BLR) Anna Kozak Iryna Khliustava Sviatlana Usovich Ilona Usovich	3:28.90 (SB)	United States (USA) Angel Perkins Miriam Barnes Shareese Woods Moushaumi Robinson	3:29.30 (SB)
	insert write up:
High jump	Blanka Vlašić  Croatia	2.03	Yelena Slesarenko  Russia	2.01	Vita Palamar  Ukraine	2.01 (NR)
	Blanka Vlasic was the clear favourite for the win after taking the world outdoor title the previous year.
Pole vault	Yelena Isinbayeva  Russia	4.75	Jennifer Stuczynski  United States	4.75 (PB)	Fabiana Murer  Brazil	4.70 (AR)
					Monika Pyrek  Poland	4.70 (SB)
	Yelena Isinbayeva won her third consecutive Indoor World title.
Long jump	Naide Gomes  Portugal	7.00 (WL)	Maurren Maggi  Brazil	6.89 (AR)	Irina Simagina  Russia	6.88
	Naide Gomes set a National Record to win her first world title.
Triple jump	Yargelis Savigne  Cuba	15.05 (AR)	Marija Šestak  Slovenia	14.68	Olga Rypakova  Kazakhstan	14.58 (AR)
	Hrysopiyi Devetzi led until the last round, when Yargelis Savigne leaped a new Area Record into victory. Devetzi was retrospectively disqualified in 2016 after failing a doping test.
Shot put	Valerie Vili  New Zealand	20.19 (AR)	Li Meiju  China	19.09 (PB)	Misleydis González  Cuba	18.75 (PB)
	Vili set two area records in her first indoor contest for four years--
Pentathlon (60 mH, HJ, SP, LJ, 800 m)	Tia Hellebaut  Belgium	4867 (WL)	Kelly Sotherton  Great Britain	4852 (SB)	Anna Bogdanova  Russia	4753
	(8.54 - 1.99 - 13.85 - 6.41 - 2:16.42)		(8.25 - 1.81 - 14.57 - 6.45 - 2:09.95)		(8.39 - 1.84 - 14.56 - 6.38 - 2:15.67)
	Tia Hellebaut's 1.99 clearance in the High jump moved her into the lead which she was able to keep until the end. In the last event, 800 m, Kelly Sotherton would have needed a 7.7 s lead over Hellebaut to win gold, but finished only 6.47 s ahead.
WR world record | AR area record | CR championship record | GR games record | NR national record | OR Olympic record | PB personal best | SB season best | WL world leading (in a given season)

Medal table

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	United States (USA)	5	5	3	13
2	Russia (RUS)	4	3	3	10
3	Ethiopia (ETH)	4	1	1	6
4	Great Britain (GBR)	1	4	0	5
5	Cuba (CUB)	1	1	2	4
6	China (CHN)	1	1	0	2
	South Africa (RSA)	1	1	0	2
	Sweden (SWE)	1	1	0	2
9	Australia (AUS)	1	0	1	2
	Portugal (POR)	1	0	1	2
11	Belgium (BEL)	1	0	0	1
	Canada (CAN)	1	0	0	1
	Croatia (CRO)	1	0	0	1
	New Zealand (NZL)	1	0	0	1
	Nigeria (NGR)	1	0	0	1
	Sudan (SUD)	1	0	0	1
17	Belarus (BLR)	0	2	0	2
	Kenya (KEN)	0	2	0	2
19	Bahrain (BHR)	0	1	1	2
	Brazil (BRA)	0	1	1	2
	Ukraine (UKR)	0	1	1	2
22	Jamaica (JAM)	0	1	0	1
	Saint Kitts and Nevis (SKN)	0	1	0	1
	Slovenia (SLO)	0	1	0	1
25	Kazakhstan (KAZ)	0	0	2	2
	Poland (POL)	0	0	2	2
27	Bahamas (BAH)	0	0	1	1
	British Virgin Islands (IVB)	0	0	1	1
	Bulgaria (BUL)	0	0	1	1
	Cyprus (CYP)	0	0	1	1
	Dominican Republic (DOM)	0	0	1	1
	Latvia (LAT)	0	0	1	1
	Morocco (MAR)	0	0	1	1
	Mozambique (MOZ)	0	0	1	1
	Saudi Arabia (KSA)	0	0	1	1
	Spain (ESP)	0	0	1	1
Totals (36 entries)		26	27	28	81

Participating nations

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to 2008 IAAF World Indoor Championships in Athletics.

• Official website of 2008 IAAF World Indoor Championships Archived 2017-09-11 at the Wayback Machine