Introduction to Hurdles

Hurdling primarily requires speed and flexibility. Ideally, runners glide over the hurdles without breaking stride and with minimum loss of speed. Runners may knock a hurdle down as they clear it, as long as the action is not done deliberately.

Hurdle events are generally run at three distances. Men and women both run a 400-meter event. Men also run a 110-meter event while women run a 100-meter race.

All three races include 10 hurdles, which are evenly spaced on the course. Under IAAF adult rules, in the 110, the hurdles are 1.067 meters (3 feet, 6 inches) high. The first hurdle is 13.72 meters from the starting line while the final hurdle is 14.02 meters from the finish. Hurdles are spaced 9.14 meters apart.

In the 100, the hurdles are 84 centimeters (2 feet, 9 inches) high. The initial hurdle is 13 meters from the start line, the final hurdle 10.5 meters from the finish and are hurdles spaced 8.5 meters apart.

In the 400, men’s hurdles are 91.4 centimeters (3 feet) high while women’s measure 76.2 centimeters (2 feet, 6 inches). The first hurdle is 45 meters from the starting line, the final hurdle is 40 meters from the finish and the hurdles are spaced 35 meters apart.

Aries Merritt of the United States ran the 110-meter hurdles in a world record 12.80 seconds in Brussels on Sept. 7, 2012.

American Kevin Young was a respectable high school hurdler but he didn’t receive a major college scholarship. So Young walked on at UCLA and blossomed quickly, winning NCAA 400-meter championships in 1987-88. He later employed an unusual strategy to break the world record with a time of 46.78 at the 1992 Olympics. Whereas top-level hurdlers generally take 13 strides between hurdles in the 400, Young decided to use just 12 on hurdles four and five. He’d noticed previously that he was using shorter, choppy strides at that portion of the event. By reducing his strides to 12, Young took longer strides and gained speed.

Yordanka Donkova first set the 100-meter hurdles world record in 1986, then beat her own record twice before losing the mark to fellow Bulgaria native Ginka Zagorcheva in 1987. Donkova earned the record back in 1988 with a 12.21-second victory at the Stara Zagora event.

Yuliya Pechonkina remains a competitive hurdler, though she's battled injuries in recent years. She set the world 400-meter record in 2003 when she won the Russian championships in 52.34, beating American Kim Batten's eight-year-old mark of 52.61.