BUDAPEST, 8 March 2004 — Maria Mutola of Mozambique become the first athlete in history to win six titles at the World Indoor Championships here yesterday.

The 31-year-old Olympic champion held off a determined challenge in the 800 meters from Jolanda Ceplak of Slovenia to take the gold medal 11 years after collecting her first World Indoor crown in Toronto.

There was disappointment though for Gail Devers, who saw her bid to win a unique sprint and sprint hurdles double crushed by Perdita Felicien of Canada who beat her to the 60m hurdles title.

Russia’s Tatyana Lebedeva made history as she added the long jump title to the triple jump gold, a feat never achieved in the 19-year history of the championships.

Christian Olsson of Sweden equaled the world indoor record in the triple jump with a leap of 17.83 meters, meaning both the men’s and women’s record were beaten or equaled over the three days of competition.

Mutola’s victory was tarnished by accusations from Ceplak that the Mozambican had jostled her as she overtook 100m from the line and made her charge for home to win in 1min 58.50sec to Ceplak’s 1:58.72.

Mutola won her first three World Indoor titles from 1993 to 1997 before Ludmila Formanova inflicted a rare defeat in Maebashi, Japan in 1999. The Mozambican was back to winning ways in 2001 and 2003.

Devers had taken the 60m title on Friday and the 37-year-old looked in the form to add the hurdles gold, but Felicien confirmed the promise shown by her world outdoor crown last year to beat the American by three hundredths of a second, 7.75sec to Devers’ 7.78sec.

“It is so great to win because Gail is a legend of the sport but there are a lot of young guns coming up and I showed that today,” said the 23-year-old student of the University of Illinois, who received a win bonus of $40,000.

Devers admitted she had made a poor start but was proud of her achievements over three busy days.

“I ran ragged and I knew Perdita was ahead of me,” said the American. “But I’m happy with what I’ve done.

“Two or three months ago I wouldn’t have believed I could have done this.”

Lebedeva, who broke the world record twice to take the triple jump gold on Saturday, needed a leap of 6.98m to achieve the double.

Mbulaeni Mulaudzi of South Africa outpaced Rashid Ramzi of Bahrain to take the men’s 800 meters title.

The 23-year-old bettered the bronze medal he won at last year’s World Championships outdoors with victory in 1min 45.71sec with Moroccan-born Ramzi running an Asian indoor record of 1:46.15 to take silver.

Dominic Demeritte of the Bahamas charged home in 20.66sec to win the 200m men’s title, while Anastasiya Kapachinskaya took the women’s 200m gold in 22.78sec.

Olsson, the 24-year-old reigning world outdoor champion, bounded to his record-equaling jump in the third round.

Russia’s women won a total of seven gold medals after Yelena Slesarenko cleared 2.04m to win the high jump and then the Russian 4x400m quartet smashed the world record with a time of 3:23.88. Berhane Adere was outsprinted in the 3,000m by her fellow Ethiopian Meseret Defar in a time of 9:11.22 with Adere 21 hundredths of a second behind.