World Indoor to Feature 159 countries!

The World Indoor Championships in Valencia, Spain will be the largest ever, with 159 countries sending teams. The Olympic year obviously brings athletes out to compete, and that means new starts and new rivalries!
Watch for our coverage of the World Indoor Championships from Valencia, Spain this next week.

28 February 2008 – Monte-Carlo – The 12th IAAF World Indoor Championships, Valencia, Spain which will take place 7 to 9 March 2008 will be the biggest ever multi-national gathering in the history of these championships by a huge margin of 20 IAAF Member Federations!
A staggering total of 159 nations have entered athletes to compete on the newly laid competition surfaces of the Palau Velodromo LluÃs Puig in Valencia next month. The next biggest gathering of Federations for these championships was in 2004 in Budapest, Hungary, when a total of 139 delegations took part.
Considering that the IAAF World Indoor Championships, after the Olympic Games and the World Championships in Athletics, are the biggest global event in the sport, the news of Valenciaâ€™s record participation figures gives an enormous additional boost to an event which is already a spectator sell-out.
With four World indoor records, subject to ratification, having already fallen this winter season, its clear that the 12th IAAF World Indoor Championships, will be one of the most keenly contested global competitions of recent years.
Ahead of Beijing 2008, the sporting world will also be keenly focused on the action and results in Valencia for indications of possible form and fitness as the same participants will also provide much of the cast list for the Olympic Games in China this coming August.
The World Indoor Championships, which were first contested under the guise of the World Indoor Games in Paris in 1985 when 69 nations took part, attracted 129 nations for their last edition in Moscow in 2006. Behind the record numbers that gathered for â€˜Budapest 2004â€™ (139), â€˜Lisbon 2001â€™ was previously the next largest championships (136), and â€˜Birmingham 2003â€˜, the third best (133).
For more on the iaaf, click: http://www.iaaf.org

Author

Larry Eder
Larry Eder has had a 52-year involvement in the sport of athletics. Larry has experienced the sport as an athlete, coach, magazine publisher, and now, journalist and blogger. His first article, on Don Bowden, America's first sub-4 minute miler, was published in RW in 1983. Larry has published several magazines on athletics, from American Athletics to the U.S. version of Spikes magazine. He currently manages the content and marketing development of the RunningNetwork, The Shoe Addicts, and RunBlogRun. Of RunBlogRun, his daily pilgrimage with the sport, Larry says: "I have to admit, I love traveling to far away meets, writing about the sport I love, and the athletes I respect, for my readers at runblogrun.com, the most of anything I have ever done, except, maybe running itself." Also does some updates for BBC Sports at key events, which he truly enjoys. Theme song: Greg Allman, " I'm no Angel."
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