VALENCIA (Spain), March 7: The world indoor championships opened in Valencia on Friday with over 600 athletes from 157 countries looking for top-class performances in the first major test of an Olympic year.

Twenty world champions, indoor or outdoor, will be competing at the Palau Luis Puig in Valencia including four athletes who won gold indoors in Moscow in 2006 and outdoors in Osaka last year, organisers said.

Ethiopian long distance sensation Meseret Defar is defending her 3,000 metre crown, Reese Hoffa will be trying to hold on to his shot put title, while pole vaulters Yelena Isinbayeva and Brad Walker are also out to add to the golds they won indoors and outdoors.

Attention will also be on the evergreen Maria Mutola who is gunning for a remarkable eighth indoor world title in the women’s 800 metres.

Isinbayeva, Swedish 60 metres hurdler Susanna Kallur and Russian 1,500 metre runner Yelena Soboleva have already set new world bests in the indoor season but there is a real prospect that more records will fall in Valencia.

There is mouth-watering men’s 60 metre hurdles in prospect with rising Cuban athlete Dayron Robles up against China’s Olympic champion Liu Xiang and local favourite Jackson Quinonez.Robles has been the dominant figure indoors this year and has even threatened Colin Jackson’s 14-year-old record of 7.30 seconds.

British sprinter Dwain Chambers will also be in the spotlight following the controversy over UK Athletics reluctant decision to include him in the team after a two-year doping ban.

Chambers will be in action on the opening day in the 60 metres where he will be up against Mike Rodgers of the United States and 2003 world 100 metres champion Kim Collins.

Angela Williams will have a chance to land her first gold in the women’s 60 metres after finishing second in 2001 and 2003, while another American Hoffa will face a stiff challenge from fellow countryman Christian Cantwell in the shot.

The women’s pentathlon will also be decided on the opening day with Britain’s Kelly Sotherton and Lithuanian Austra Skujyte the favourites in the absence of the injured Carolina Kluft.—Reuters