The IAAF World Indoor Championships in Doha which will take place from 12 to 14 March 2010 are expected to become the biggest gathering in terms of participating nations in the history of these championships, exceeding the previous record set two years ago in Valencia.
With 150 countries having entered athletes to compete at the Aspire Dome next week, the Doha 2010 World Indoors should surpass Valencia 2008 where 147 countries, also a participating record at the time, contested the event.
A total of 1,134 athletes and officials are also expected to attend what will be the IAAF’s most important event of the 2010 World Athletics Series. 374 male athletes, 283 female athletes and 477 officials have indeed been entered following the 1st of March deadline for Final Entries.
For the fourth time, the IAAF World Indoor Championships will step outside Europe following the North American editions of Indianapolis ’87 and Toronto ’93 and the Asian stopover in Maebashi ’99 and for the first time ever this competition will be held on Middle East soil.
On the individual front, the Russian pair of Yelena Isinabyeva in the Pole Vault and Tatyana Kotova in the Long Jump will be the most decorated athletes in the field with three World Indoor gold medals each and both having legitimate chances of winning a fourth title.
The same holds true for Meseret Defar on the track who will go for her fourth 3000m gold. In the men’s events, World Decathlon record holder Roman Sebrle (CZE) and sprint hurdler Terrence Trammell (USA) both already have 2 World Indoor titles under their belts.
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 147 nations for their last edition in Valencia in 2008. Behind, the numbers that gathered for Budapest 2004 were 139 nations, 136 for Lisbon 2001 and 133 for Birmingham