Women's 400 m Hurdles
The '400 m Hurdles' are an
Olympic athletics (track and field) discipline. On a standard outdoor track 400 meters is the length of the inside lane once around the stadium. Runners stay in their lane the entire way after starting out of the blocks and must clear ten hurdles that are evenly, for each lane, spaced around the track. The hurdles are positioned so that they fall forward if bumped into to prevent injury to the runners. Although fallen hurdles don't count against them, runners like to clear them clean, as touching them during the race slows runners down.
The best male athletes can run the 400 m Hurdles in a time of around 47 seconds (
WR: 46.78 seconds), which is the equivalent of 8.51 meters per second or 30.63 kilometers per hour. The best female athletes achieve a time of around 53 seconds (WR: 52.34 seconds), or 7.54 meters per second and 27.16 kilometers per hour. Compared to the 400 Meters the hurdles race takes the men about 3 seconds longer and the women 4 seconds longer.
The 400 m Hurdles have been an Olympic discipline since
1900 and
1984 for men and women, respectively.
History
The first awards in a 400 m Hurdles race were given in
1860 when a race was held in Oxforn, England, over a course of 440
yards (approx. 402 meters). While running the course, participants had to clear 12 massive, more than 100cm tall, wooden hurdles that had been spaced in even intervals.
To reduce the risk of injury, somewhat more lightweight constructions were introduced in
1895 that runners could push over. But until
1935 runners were disqualified if they pushed over more than 3 hurdles in a race and records were only officially accepted if the runner in question had cleared all hurdles clean and left them all standing.
At the
1900 Summer Olympics in
Paris,
France, the 400 m Hurdles became an Olympic event. At the same time, the race was standardized so that virtually identical races could be held and the finish times compared to each other. As a result, the official distance was fixed to 400 meters, or once around the stadium, and the number of hurdles was reduced to 10. The official height of the hurdles was set to 91.44 cm (3
feet) for men and, since
1974, to 76.20 cm (2-1/2 feet) for women. The hurdles were now placed on the course with a runup to the first hurdle of 45 meters, a distance between the hurdles of 35 meters each, and a home stretch from the last hurdle to the goal line of 40 meters.
The first documented 400 m Hurdles race for women took place in
1971.
The
International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) introduced the event officially as a discipline in
1974, although it was not run at the
World Championships and the first female World Champion was not determined until the
1983 World Championships.
Milestones
★ Men
★
★ First official
IAAF world record: 55.0 seconds,
Charles Bacon (
USA),
1908
★
★ First under 54 seconds: 53.8 seconds,
Sten Pettersson (
SWE),
1925
★
★ First under 53 seconds: 52.6 seconds,
John Gibson (
USA),
1927
★
★ First under 52 seconds: 51.7 seconds,
Bob Tisdall (
IRL),
1932
★
★ First under 51 seconds: 50.6 seconds,
Glenn Hardin (
USA),
1934
★
★ First under 50 seconds: 49.5 seconds,
Glenn Davis (
USA),
1956
★
★ First under 49 seconds: 48.8 seconds,
Geoff Vanderstock (
USA),
1968
★
★ First under 48 seconds: 47.82 seconds,
John Akii-Bua (
UGA),
1972
★
★ First under 47 seconds: 46.78 seconds,
Kevin Young (
USA),
1992
★ Women
★
★ First official world record: 56.51 seconds,
Krystyna Kacperczyk (
POL),
1974
★
★ First under 56 seconds: 55.74 seconds,
Tatjana Storoschewa (
USSR),
1977
★
★ First under 55 seconds: 54.89 seconds,
Tatjana Selenzowa (
USSR),
1978
★
★ First under 54 seconds: 53.58 seconds,
Margarita Ponomarjowa (
USSR),
1984
★
★ First under 53 seconds: 52.94 seconds,
Marina Stepanowa (
USSR),
1986
Most successful athletes
Mr. 400 m Hurdles: Edwin Moses
★ 'Two Olympic victories':
★
★
Glenn Davis (
USA),
1956 and
1960
★
★
Edwin Moses (
USA),
1976 and
1984 (also Bronze in
1988)
★ 'Two World Championships':
★
★
Edwin Moses (
USA),
1983 and
1987
★
★
Félix Sánchez (
DOM),
2001 and
2003 (also Silver in
2007)
★
★
Nezha Bidouane (
MAR),
1997 and
2001 (also Silver in
1999)
★
★
Jana Rawlinson (
AUS),
2003 (as Jana Pittman) and
2007
'Most surprising rookie':
Glenn Davis (USA), who ran his first race in April
1956 in 54.4 slow seconds. Two months later though, he ran a new world record with 49.5 seconds and later that year he won the 400 m Hurdles at the Olympics, and was also the first to repeat that feat in
1960.
'Athlete who wrote the book on 400 m Hurdles': The
American Edwin Moses won 122 races in a row between
1977 and
1987 plus two Gold medals at the
1976 Summer Olympics in Montréal, and the
1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. He was undefeated for exactly nine years nine months and nine days until he got a bronze medal in the
1988 Summer Olympics. The boycott of the
1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow prevented his Gold-
hat-trick but his career is nonetheless widely regarded as simply astonishing. He held the world record continuously from when he first broke it at the Olympics on
July 25,
1976 (twice in one day) until it was finally broken at the
1992 Summer Olympics.
Medalists
Olympic Games
Men
Women
World Championships
Men
Women
History of world records
Men
Women
All-time top ten
Men
Women
See also
★
Hurdles
References
Much of the content of this article comes from the equivalent German-language wikipedia article (retrieved
February 4,
2006).
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