50 Fun Facts About Hurdles

How many hurdles are there in a standard 110 m, 100 m or 400 m hurdles race?

Indoor 60 m races use five, and the youth 300 m hurdles uses eight.

What is the standard sprint hurdles distance for men?

Women run 100 metres; the men's distance dates from the 120-yard race standardised at Oxford and Cambridge in 1864.

What happens to a hurdler who accidentally knocks over a hurdle?

Deliberately knocking one over or passing underneath still means disqualification.

Until 1935, how many hurdles could a runner knock down before being disqualified?

Records were only recognised if every hurdle was left standing, which is why the L-shaped hurdle changed the sport.

What design innovation of 1935 made hurdles safer?

The old T-shaped hurdles of 1895 replaced massive fixed barriers; some 1923 wooden hurdles weighed 16 pounds each.

How high are the hurdles in the men's 110 m?

Women's sprint hurdles stand at 33 inches, the men's 400 m at 36 and the women's 400 m at 30.

How high are the hurdles in the women's 100 m, the so-called "women's high" setting?

Standard hurdles have five height settings, from 42 inches down to the 30-inch "low hurdle".

In the men's sprint hurdles, how far apart are the hurdles?

The first hurdle is 13.72 m from the line, and the run-in from the last hurdle is 14.02 m.

In the 400 m hurdles, how far apart are the barriers?

The first hurdle stands 45 metres from the start for both men and women.

How many strides do sprint hurdlers take between each hurdle?

The rhythm is the same indoors and out, so hurdlers never change stride pattern between seasons.

Which 1900 Olympic champion pioneered the three-step technique between hurdles?

He took the first hurdle on the run with his upper body lowered instead of jumping it.

Which Cuban set a 12.87 world record in 2008 using a seven-step approach to the first hurdle?

Top hurdlers had traditionally taken eight strides to the first barrier; by 2012 seven of the ten fastest men used seven.

The 110 m hurdles has been on the Olympic programme since which Games?

In the early 20th century it was often run as the 120-yard hurdles.

Over what distance did women run the Olympic sprint hurdles from 1932 to 1968?

The 100 m replaced it from the 1972 Munich Games; Babe Didrikson was the first woman under 12 seconds for 80 m.

Which now-defunct men's event appeared at the 1900 and 1904 Olympics?

The IAAF recognised records for it until 1960, and Don Styron's mark stood for over 50 years.

Who was the first man to run the 110 m hurdles in under 13 seconds?

He did it in Zürich in 1981 and then spent four seasons as a wide receiver with the San Francisco 49ers.

Which NFL team did the first sub-13-second hurdler play for as a wide receiver from 1982 to 1985?

He returned to the track from 1986 to 1991 after his football career.

Which Welsh hurdler's 12.91 world record of 1993 stood for nearly 13 years?

His 60 m hurdles indoor record lasted almost 27 years, and he was unbeaten at the European Championships for 12 years.

Which Chinese hurdler won the 2004 Olympic 110 m title and broke the world record in 2006?

He switched from an eight-step to a seven-step approach for the 2011 season.

Who set a 110 m hurdles world record of 12.80 in Brussels in 2012, a mark that stood until 2026?

Days later he was diagnosed with a rare kidney disease; he later received a transplant and returned to compete.

Who won the 2024 Paris Olympic 110 m hurdles and set a 7.27 indoor 60 m hurdles record?

As of late 2025 he had not lost an indoor sprint hurdles race since March 2014, when he was 16.

Who is the only man to win Olympic gold in both the 100 m sprint and the 110 m hurdles?

"Bones" Dillard failed to make the 1948 hurdles team, won the 100 m instead, then took the hurdles title in 1952.

Who holds the women's 100 m hurdles world record of 12.12 seconds?

The Nigerian set it in a 2022 World Championships semi-final in Eugene, then ran a wind-aided 12.06 in the final.

Whose 1988 world record of 12.21 stood for almost 28 years until Kendra Harrison broke it?

The Bulgarian set four world records in 1986 alone.

What was bittersweet about Kendra Harrison's 12.20 world record in London in July 2016?

She tripped at the Olympic Trials and finished sixth, then broke the 28-year-old record at the Anniversary Games.

Which country swept the women's 100 m hurdles medals at the 2016 Rio Olympics?

Brianna Rollins, Nia Ali and Kristi Castlin gave American women their first sweep in any Olympic event.

Which "Flying Housewife" won four golds at the 1948 Olympics, including the 80 m hurdles?

The 30-year-old Dutch mother of two had first improved the 80 m hurdles world mark in 1942.

Which Australian hurdler won more Olympic medals than any of her country's other runners?

She grew up on a farm in the Western Australian wheatbelt and won 80 m hurdles gold in 1952 and 1956.

In which year did the women's 400 m hurdles first appear at the Olympics?

The men's event had been contested since 1900, and the first women's world champion was crowned in 1983.

Edwin Moses won how many consecutive 400 m hurdles races between 1977 and 1987?

That is 107 straight finals, plus Olympic golds in 1976 and 1984 and four world records.

What was Edwin Moses' trademark stride pattern between hurdles?

At 6 ft 2 in he held 13 all the way while rivals faded to 15 or switched; he was the first man to do it for a whole race.

What did Edwin Moses major in at Morehouse College?

Morehouse had no track of its own, so he trained on public high school facilities around Atlanta.

Who broke Edwin Moses' 16-year-old world record at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics?

His 46.78 lasted until Karsten Warholm ran 46.70 in Oslo in July 2021.

What time did Karsten Warholm run to win the Tokyo Olympic 400 m hurdles and set the world record?

He beat his own month-old record by more than three-quarters of a second in one of the great races in history.

Which country does Karsten Warholm represent?

He competed in the decathlon as a youth and won a silver medal in it with 7,764 points.

What is Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone's 400 m hurdles world record, set at the Paris Olympics in 2024?

She broke her own 50.65 and, in 2025, ran 47.78 for the flat 400 m, the second-fastest ever.

What stride pattern does Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone use for most of her 400 m hurdles race?

An even count means she alternates lead legs, unlike the classic odd-numbered rhythms.

Who was the first female 400 m hurdler to win Olympic and world titles and break the world record?

Her 52.74 from 1993 remains the British record; Dalilah Muhammad became the second to do the treble.

Who won the women's 400 m hurdles at the 2016 Rio Olympics and set a world record of 52.16 in 2019?

She took her first world title in Doha in 2019 and later ran 51.58 for silver in Tokyo.

Dutch star Femke Bol holds the world record in which indoor event?

Her 49.17 came in March 2024; outdoors she is the second-fastest 400 m hurdler ever at 50.95.

Rai Benjamin, the 2024 Olympic 400 m hurdles champion, first competed internationally for which country?

Born in New York, he later switched to the United States and ran 46.17, the second-fastest time ever.

Which two men have won the 400 m hurdles at two Olympics and two World Championships?

Sánchez of the Dominican Republic won in 2004 and 2012, eight years apart.

In which other track event may athletes step on the barrier to clear it?

Its water jump is 3.66 metres long and 70 cm deep at the barrier end.

What is the standard indoor sprint hurdles distance?

It is run over five hurdles; American meets sometimes use 55 or 50 metres.

Which combined events include a hurdles race?

Men run 110 m hurdles in the decathlon and women 100 m hurdles in the heptathlon.

A mixed shuttle hurdle relay with two men and two women debuted at which event in 2019?

The women run the men's 110 m distance in this format.

How many hurdles are set out in a standard 60 m indoor sprint hurdles race?

Shorter 50 m or 55 m races, common in the United States, may have only four barriers.

Which lead leg lets a 400 m hurdler run tighter to the inside of the lane on the bends?

A right-leg lead on a bend risks trailing the foot around the side of the hurdle, which brings disqualification.

Why was Bob Tisdall's world-record 400 m hurdles win at the 1932 Olympics never ratified as a record?

Under the rules of the day, records only counted if every hurdle was left standing; today there is no penalty for an accidental knock.

How many wooden hurdles did runners clear in the first 440-yard hurdles race at Oxford in 1860?

The barriers stood over a metre tall; the count was cut to ten and the height fixed at 91.4 cm when the event was standardised for the 1900 Olympics.