(Redirected from 110 meters hurdles)
The '110 m hurdles' are an
Olympic track and field athletics discipline run by men. For the race ten hurdles of a height of 1.067 m (3½ feet) are placed evenly spaced along a straight course of 110 meters. They are positioned so that they will fall over if bumped into by the runner. Fallen hurdles do not count against runners so long as they do not run into them on purpose. Like the 100 meter sprint the 110 m hurdles is started out of the blocks. Sometimes, high school athletes run the 110 hurdles with 39 inch hurdles, instead of the normal 42 inch hurdles.
For the 110 m hurdles the first hurdle is placed after a runup of 15 yards (13.72 m) from the starting line. The next 9 hurdles are set at a distance of 10 yards (9.14 m) from each other, and the home stretch from the last hurdle to the finish line is 15 yd 1 ft (14.02 m) long.
The
Olympic Games have included the 110 m hurdles in the program since
1896. The equivalent
hurdles race for women was run over a course of 80 meters from
1932 through
1968. Starting with the
1972 Summer Olympics the women's race was lengthened to
100m Hurdles.
The fastest 110 m hurdlers run the distance in a time of around 13 seconds. The
world record, held by Xiang Liu of China, stands at 12.88 seconds (as of July 2006) or the equivalent of 8.54 meters per second or 30.75 kilometers per hour. He had previously held the joint world record of 12.91 seconds with
Colin Jackson of the UK.
History
Alvin Kraenzlein
For the first hurdles races in
England around
1830, wooden barriers were placed along a stretch of 100 yards. The first standards were attempted in
1864 in
Oxford and
Cambridge: The length of the course was set to 120
yards (109.72
meters) and over its course runners were required to clear ten 3½
foot (1.067 m) high hurdles. After the length of hurdles races was rounded up to 110 meters in
France from
1888 on, the standards were pretty much complete except for
Germany where hurdles of 1 meter height were used until
1907.
The massively constructed hurdles of the early days were first replaced in
1895 with somewhat lighter T-shaped hurdles that runners were able to knock over. However, until
1935 runners were disqualified if they knocked down more than 3 hurdles and records were only recognized if the runner had left all hurdles standing.
In
1935 the T-shaped hurdles were replaced by L-shaped ones that easily fall forward if bumped into and therefore reduce the risk of injury.
The current running style where the first hurdle is taken on the run with the upper body lowered instead of being jumped over and with three steps each between the hurdles was first used by the
1900 Olympic champion,
Alvin Kraenzlein.
The 110 m hurdles have been an Olympic discipline since
1896. Women ran it occasionally in the
1920 but it never became generally accepted. From
1926 on women have only run the 80 m hurdles which was increased to 100 meters first starting in 1961 on a trial basis and in 1969 in official competition.
In
1900 and
1904 the Olympics also included a 200 m hurdles race and the
IAAF recognized world records for the 200 m hurdles until
1960.
Milestones
★ First official
IAAF world record: 15.0 seconds,
Forrest Smithson (
USA),
1908
★ First under 14.5 seconds: 14.4 seconds,
Earl Thomson (
CAN),
1920
★ First under 14 seconds: 13.7 seconds,
Forrest Towns (
USA),
1936
★ First under 13.5 seconds: 13.4 seconds,
Jack Davis (
USA),
1956
★ First under 13 seconds: 12.93 seconds,
Renaldo Nehemiah (
USA),
1981
Most successful athletes
★ Current World Record, 12.88 seconds
★
★
Liu Xiang (
CHN),
2006
★ Two Olympic victories:
★
★
Lee Calhoun (
USA),
1956 and
1960;
Roger Kingdom (
USA),
1984 and
1988
★ Four world championship titles:
★
★
Allen Johnson (
USA),
1995,
1997,
2001 and
2003 as well as Olympic Gold
1996
★ Three world championship titles:
★
★
Greg Foster (
USA),
1983,
1987 and
1991
★ Two world championship titles:
★
★
Colin Jackson (
GBR),
1993 and
1999 as well as Olympic Silver
1988, world record-holder for 13 years.
★ First Olympic and World championship titles and World Record co-holder
★
★
Liu Xiang (
CHN),
Athens Olympic Games in
2004, World Record 12.88 seconds in
2006,
Osaka World Championships in Athletics in
2007
110 m hurdles medalists at the Olympic games
110m Hurdles medalists at the World Championships
History of world records
All-time top ten hurdlers
In brackets: Wind measured in m/s. A = Time achieved at high altitude
All-time top ten performances
In brackets: Wind measured in m/s. A = Time achieved at high altitude
References
Much of the content of this article comes from the equivalent German-language wikipedia article (retrieved
February 5,
2006).
العربية
中国
Français
Deutsch
Ελληνική
हिन्दी
Italiano
日本語
Português
Русский
Español
