Britons Lisa Dobriskey and Mo Farah have reached their finals at the IAAF World Indoor Championships in Valencia.

24-year-old Commonwealth 1500 metres champion Dobriskey stepped up in distance to 3000m and placed fourth, automatically earning her a place in Saturday's final.

Ethiopia's Meseret Defar, chasing a third successive title, took the heat in eight minutes 51.04 seconds ahead of New Zealand's Kim Smith and Sylvia Kibet from Kenya.

Then came Dobriskey who clocked 8min 56.56sec, although she had to call upon deep reserves after being caught off guard when Smith broke up the field with a kilometre to run.

Helen Clitheroe also made progress but as a fastest loser after finishing seventh in her heat in a time of 8:52.48.

Mo Farah hung on grimly over the final 200m circuit to assure himself a place in his 3,000m final on Sunday.

He could not quite match the finishing speed of Edwin Soi, who clocked 8:03.54 with Tariku Bekele finishing 0.01 behind, but he gave the Kenyan and Ethiopian gold medal contenders their strongest challenge by finishing third in 8:04.65.

Christopher Tomlinson was third best of the qualifers for the long jump final with a leap of 7.95m while Phillips Idowu went through in the triple jump with a best of 17.05m.

Sporting Life / Eurosport