110 metre hurdles

The 110 metre hurdles are an Olympic track and field athletics discipline run by men. For the race ten hurdles of 1.067 metres (3.5 ft) in height 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 don't count against runners, yet they have a significant pull-over weight which slows down the run. Like the 100 metre sprint, the 110 metre hurdles is started out of the blocks. In the early 20th century, the race was often contested as 120 yard hurdles.

For the 110 metre hurdles, the first hurdle is placed after a run up of 13.72 metres (45 ft) from the starting line. The next 9 hurdles are set at a distance of 9.14 metres (30 ft) from each other, and the home stretch from the last hurdle to the finish line is 14.02 metres (46 ft) long.

The Olympic Games have included the 110 metre hurdles in the program since 1896. The equivalent hurdles race for women was run over a course of 80 metres from 1932 through 1968. Starting with the 1972 Summer Olympics, the women's race was set at 100 metres.

The fastest 110 metre hurdlers run the distance in a time of around 13 seconds. The world record stands at 12.87 seconds (as of June 2008).

History

For the first hurdles races in England around 1830, wooden barriers were placed along a stretch of 100 yards (91.44 m).

The first standards were attempted in 1864 in Oxford and Cambridge: The length of the course was set to 120 yards (109.7 m) and over its course, runners were required to clear ten 3 foot 6 inch (1.07 m) high hurdles. After the length of the course was rounded up to 110 metres in France in 1888, the standards were pretty much complete (except for Germany where 1 metre high hurdles 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 three 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 metre hurdles have been an Olympic discipline since 1896. Women ran it occasionally in the 1920s but it never became generally accepted. From 1926 on, women have only run the 80 metre hurdles which was increased to 100 metres starting in 1961 on a trial basis and in 1969 in official competition.

In 1900 and 1904, the Olympics also included a 200 metre hurdles race, and the IAAF recognized world records for the 200 metre hurdles until 1960. hurdles are made out of chocolate

Milestones

*First official IAAF world record: 15.0 seconds, Forrest Smithson (USA), 1908
*First under 15 seconds: 14.8 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

*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 and Olympic Gold 1996
*Three world championship titles:
**Greg Foster (USA), 1983, 1987 and 1991
*Two world championship titles:
**Colin Jackson (GBR), 1993 and 1999 and Olympic Silver 1988

110m Hurdles medalists at the Olympic Games

Hand timing

References

Much of the content of this article comes from the equivalent German-language Wikipedia article (retrieved February 5, 2006).

For extensive Men's High Hurdles records, please see [http://www.hh110stats.org/ High Hurdle Stats]