Britain's Jason Gardener, the 2004 world indoor champion over 60 metres, made it a hat-trick of European indoor titles after his victories in 2000 and 2002, winning in a season's best of 6.55 seconds.
This winter Gardener has been over-shadowed by France's Ronald Pognan, who deprived him of his European indoor record over the shortest distance on the track.
However, when it came to the crunch, Pognan was no match for his rival who got off to a blazing start and was never headed.
Fellow Briton Mark Lewis-Francis came through for second in
6.59secs with a disappointed Pognan having to settle for the bronze medal in 6.62secs, well short of the European best of 6.45secs he clocked three weeks ago.
Belgium's Gevaert was a less surprising winner of the women's 60m and retained the title she won three years ago in Vienna in 7.16secs.
Denmark's Joachim Olsen launched the shot out to 21.19m in the first round and that sufficed to win the battle of the big men.
Romania's Elena Iager moved up from a silver medal in the last edition of the championships to take the gold in a thrilling women's 1,500m final, stopping the clock in 4mins 3.09secs, the best time in the world this year.
In total, four Russians took titles in Madrid today.
Svetlana Pospelova sped around two laps of the track to win the women's 400m in 50.41secs.
Pospelova, the winner of the title in 2000 who then spent two years on the sidelines for a doping offence later that year, was pushed to the best time in the world this year by Belarus' Sviatlana Usovich, who was rewarded with a new national record of 50.55secs.
Russian triple jumper Igor Spasovhodskiy has not had the best of luck at the European Indoors in the past, failing to qualify in 2000 and finishing seventh two years later.
Spasovhodskiy must have thought his chance of a medal had deserted him again when he failed to register a valid leap in the first three rounds but he found his form in the fifth round and went out to the winning distance of 17.20m.
Igor Pavlov was the only man clear at 5.90m in the pole vault while his compatriot Anna Chicherova won the women's high jump with 2.01m, both performances being the best in the world this year.
Belarus' Nadezeya Astapchuk won her first major senior title when she took the women's shot put.
Astapchuk twice went further than any thrower in the world this winter, culminating in her fifth round 19.37m, but it was the shortest winning distance since 1973.
An extraordinary women's long jump saw the final effort of Bianca Kapper incorrectly measured by the officials.
Organisers have acknowledged the mistake and arranged for the German to take one final attempt tomorrow - but currently her national federation are not accepting this as a proper solution.
Naide Gomes put up a Portugal record of 6.70m to 'win' ahead of Greece's Stiliani Pilatou and Romania's Adina Anton.
According to German press sources, Kapper claims the wrongly measured leap was around the distance Gomes achieved with her very first attempt.
