The 400 metres hurdles is an Olympic athletics event in track and field. On a standard outdoor track 400 metres 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 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, while the best female athletes achieve a time of around 53 seconds. The current men's and women's world record holders are Kevin Young with 46.78 seconds and Yuliya Pechonkina with 52.34 seconds. Compared to the 400 metres, the hurdles race takes the men about three seconds longer and the women four seconds longer.
The 400 m hurdles have been an Olympic discipline since 1900 and 1984 for men and women, respectively.
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The first awards in a 400 m hurdles race were given in 1860 when a race was held in Oxford, England, over a course of 440 yards (402.336 m). While running the course, participants had to clear twelve wooden hurdles, over 100 centimetres tall, 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. However, until 1935 runners were disqualified if they pushed over more than three 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.
The 400 m hurdles became an Olympic event at the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris, France. 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 metres, or one lap of the stadium, and the number of hurdles was reduced to ten. The official height of the hurdles was set to 91.4 cm (3 feet) for men and 76.20 cm (2 ft, 6 inches) for women. The hurdles were now placed on the course with a run-up to the first hurdle of 45 metres, a distance between the hurdles of 35 metres each, and a home stretch from the last hurdle to the finish line of 40 metres.
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 Olympics until 1984, the first World Champion having been crowned the year before at the inaugural IAAF World Championships in Athletics.
Many athletic commentators and officials have often brought up the idea of lifting the height of the women's 400 m hurdles to incorporate a greater requirement of hurdling skill. This is a view held by German athletic coach Norbert Stein: "All this means that the women's hurdles for specialists, who are the target group to be dealt with in this discussion, is considerably depreciated in skill demands when compared to the men's hurdles. It should not be possible in the women's hurdles that the winner is an athlete whose performance in the flat sprint is demonstrably excellent but whose technique of hurdling is only moderate and whose anthropometric characteristics are not optimal. This was the case at the World Championships in Seville and the same problem can often be seen at international and national meetings."
“The 400m hurdle race one of the most demanding of all events in the sprint-hurdle group.” (Lindeman) It requires speed, endurance, and hurdling technique all along with unique awareness and special concentration throughout the race.
When preparing to hurdle, the blocks should be set so that the athlete arrives at the first hurdle leading on the desired leg without inserting a stutter step. A stutter step is when the runner has to chop his or her stride down to arrive on the "correct" leg for take off. Throughout the race, any adjustments to stride length stride speed should be made several strides out from the hurdle because a stutter or being too far from the hurdle at take off will result in loss of momentum and speed.
At the beginning of the take-off, the knee must be driven toward the hurdle and the foot then extended. The knee should be slightly bent when crossing the hurdle. Unless an athlete’s body has great flexibility, the knee must be slightly bent to allow a forward body lean. Unlike the 110m hurdles, a significant forward body learn is not that necessary due to the hurdles being lower. However, the trail leg must be kept bent and short to provide a quick lever action allowing a fast hurdle clearance. The knee should pull through under the armpit and should not be flat across the top of the hurdle.
It is also important that the hurdler doesn’t reach out on the last stride before the hurdle as this will result in a longer bound being made to clear the hurdle. This will also result in a loss of momentum if the foot lands well in front of the center of gravity.
Using a left lead leg on the bends allows the hurdler to run closer to the inside of the lane and cover a shorter distance. Additionally, if the left leg is used for the lead, then the athlete's upper body can be leaned to the left, making it easier to bring the trail leg through. Additionally, an athlete hurdling with a right leg lead around the bends must take care that they do not inadvertently trail their foot or toe around the hurdle rather than passing over the top, which would lead to a disqualifciation from the race. At an early age, many coaches train their athletes to hurdle with both legs. This is a useful skill to learn since as a runner tires, their stride length may decrease, resulting in the need either to add a stutter stride, or to take a hurdle on the right leg. The 400 metre hurdles is a very physically demanding race. It requires intense training to get the endurance, speed and technique needed to compete.
American athlete Glenn Davis had a prodigious start to his hurdling career, running his first race in April 1956 in 54.4 s. Two months later, he ran a new world record with 49.5 s and later that year he won the 400 m hurdles at the Olympics, and was also the first to repeat that feat in 1960.
In terms of success and longevity in competition, Edwin Moses' record is significant: he 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, from August 26, 1977 until June 4, 1987. The U.S. boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow prevented him from winning a hat-trick of gold medals, but his career is nonetheless widely regarded as one of the most successful in hurdling. His winning streak lasted until he finished third in the 1988 Olympic final, the last race in his professional career. He also held the world record for sixteen years from when he first broke it at the Olympics on July 25, 1976 (twice in one day) until it was finally broken by Kevin Young at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona.
The official IAAF World Championships in Athletics competition began in 1983, but a 1980 women's event in Sittard, Netherlands, was also granted World Championship status. Three East German athletes took the gold, silver and bronze medals: Bärbel Broschat, Ellen Neumann, and Petra Pfaff.[1]
| Year | Gold | Silver | Bronze |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1983 | Edwin Moses (USA) | Harald Schmid (FRG) | Aleksandr Karlov (URS) |
| 1987 | Edwin Moses (USA) | Danny Harris (USA) | Harald Schmid (FRG) |
| 1991 | Samuel Matete (ZAM) | Winthrop Graham (JAM) | Kriss Akabusi (GBR) |
| 1993 | Kevin Young (USA) | Samuel Matete (ZAM) | Winthrop Graham (JAM) |
| 1995 | Derrick Adkins (USA) | Samuel Matete (ZAM) | Stéphane Diagana (FRA) |
| 1997 | Stéphane Diagana (FRA) | Llewellyn Herbert (RSA) | Bryan Bronson (USA) |
| 1999 | Fabrizio Mori (ITA) | Stéphane Diagana (FRA) | Marcel Schelbert (SUI) |
| 2001 | Félix Sánchez (DOM) | Fabrizio Mori (ITA) | Dai Tamesue (JPN) |
| 2003 | Félix Sánchez (DOM) | Joey Woody (USA) | Periklis Iakovakis (GRE) |
| 2005 | Bershawn Jackson (USA) | James Carter (USA) | Dai Tamesue (JPN) |
| 2007 | Kerron Clement (USA) | Félix Sánchez (DOM) | Marek Plawgo (POL) |
| 2009 | Kerron Clement (USA) | Javier Culson (PUR) | Bershawn Jackson (USA) |
| 2011 | Dai Greene (GBR) | Javier Culson (PUR) | L.J. Van Zyl (RSA) |
| Year | Gold | Silver | Bronze |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1983 | Yekaterina Fesenko (URS) | Anna Ambraziené (URS) | Ellen Fiedler (GDR) |
| 1987 | Sabine Busch (GDR) | Debbie Flintoff-King (AUS) | Cornelia Ullrich (GDR) |
| 1991 | Tatyana Ledovskaya (URS) | Sally Gunnell (GBR) | Janeene Vickers (USA) |
| 1993 | Sally Gunnell (GBR) | Sandra Farmer-Patrick (USA) | Margarita Ponomaryova (RUS) |
| 1995 | Kim Batten (USA) | Tonya Buford-Bailey (USA) | Deon Hemmings (JAM) |
| 1997 | Nezha Bidouane (MAR) | Deon Hemmings (JAM) | Kim Batten (USA) |
| 1999 | Daimi Pernia (CUB) | Nezha Bidouane (MAR) | Deon Hemmings (JAM) |
| 2001 | Nezha Bidouane (MAR) | Yuliya Nosova (RUS) | Daimí Pernía (CUB) |
| 2003 | Jana Rawlinson (AUS) | Sandra Glover (USA) | Yuliya Pechonkina (RUS) |
| 2005 | Yuliya Pechonkina (RUS) | Lashinda Demus (USA) | Sandra Glover (USA) |
| 2007 | Jana Rawlinson (AUS) | Yuliya Pechonkina (RUS) | Anna Jesień (POL) |
| 2009 | Melaine Walker (JAM) | Lashinda Demus (USA) | Josanne Lucas (TRI) |
| 2011 | Lashinda Demus (USA) | Melaine Walker (JAM) | Natalya Antyukh (RUS) |
(Updated May 2010) [2]
(Updated August 2010)[3]
Much of the content of this article comes from the equivalent German-language Wikipedia article (retrieved February 4, 2006).
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