49 Fun Facts About Hurdles

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

Ten, whatever the distance. Indoor 60 m races use the first five barriers at exactly the same spacing, so a sprint hurdler's stride pattern never changes between seasons.

The men's sprint hurdles race is 110 m because which country rounded up the British 120 yards in 1888?

France turned 120 yards, which is 109.7 m, into a round 110, and the spare foot was simply added after the last hurdle: the run-in is still that much longer than the run-up.

What penalty does a hurdler face for accidentally knocking over a hurdle?

No penalty applies. The barriers are weighted so that hitting one costs speed, which is punishment enough; only knocking one down on purpose or with a hand brings disqualification.

Which American, days after winning the 1992 Olympic 100 m, led the hurdles final until she hit the last barrier?

Gail Devers stumbled across the line in fifth and never did win an Olympic hurdles medal, though she took a hat-trick of world titles in the event.

What design innovation of 1935 made hurdles safer?

An L-shaped hurdle that tips forward when hit falls out of the runner's path, which cut injuries, though clipping one still costs speed.

Hurdler Lolo Jones, twice a world indoor champion, went on to compete at the Winter Olympics in which sport?

Bobsled: she pushed a two-woman sled as brakewoman at the 2014 Games, six years after clipping the ninth hurdle while leading the Olympic final and fading to seventh.

Jasmine Camacho-Quinn, born in South Carolina, won the Tokyo Olympic 100 m hurdles representing which team?

Puerto Rico is her mother's homeland, which made her eligible, and her gold was only the second in its Olympic history; her brother Robert Quinn chose the NFL instead.

Lashinda Demus finally received her London 2012 hurdles gold in 2024, at a ceremony in front of which landmark?

The Eiffel Tower was the backdrop, during the Paris Games, a dozen years late: the Russian who beat her in London was only later disqualified for doping.

Which American was disqualified from the 2022 world 110 m hurdles final for reacting one-thousandth of a second too fast?

Devon Allen came out of his blocks 0.099 seconds after the gun, inside the 0.1-second limit, and was out nine days before he was due at his first NFL training camp.

How many strides do sprint hurdlers take between each hurdle?

Three, for women as well as men. An odd count brings the same lead leg to every barrier, so the whole race runs to one rhythm.

Alvin Kraenzlein, hurdles champion at the 1900 Olympics, popularised what?

A straight front leg let him take hurdles in his stride instead of jumping them; an English student had tried it in the 1880s, but Kraenzlein perfected it and made it the norm.

Which Cuban broke the 110 m hurdles world record with 12.87 in 2008?

Dayron Robles won Olympic gold in Beijing two months later, but in 2011 he crossed the line first in the world final and was disqualified for obstructing a rival.

The 110 m hurdles has featured at every modern Olympics since the first, held in which city?

Athens saw a final with only two starters: the other two qualifiers did not line up, one of them the man who went on to win the pole vault.

Which American won the first Olympic women's hurdles title, over 80 metres, at the 1932 Los Angeles Games?

Babe Didrikson won it in a world-record 11.7 seconds and took javelin gold and high jump silver that week, then switched sports and became the best woman golfer of her era.

The low hurdles, last run at the Olympics in 1904, gave which sprinter a world record in 1935?

Jesse Owens ran the 220-yard low hurdles in 22.6 seconds at Ann Arbor, one of six world records he broke or equalled within a single hour that afternoon.

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

Renaldo Nehemiah ran 12.93 in Zürich in 1981, a year after the US boycott of the Moscow Olympics had denied the world's best hurdler his likeliest gold medal.

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

San Francisco 49ers. He gave up hurdling while still the world record holder to join them, then came back to the track in 1986 and earned world rankings four more times.

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

Colin Jackson set it while winning the world title in Stuttgart, yet Olympic gold always escaped him: a silver in 1988 was his only medal from four Games.

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

Liu Xiang went to the 2008 Beijing Games as defending champion and national hero, then walked off injured after a false start in his first heat, leaving his coach and much of the crowd in tears.

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

Aries Merritt fell ill the following year with a genetic kidney disorder, yet won a world bronze medal in 2015 just four days before receiving a kidney from his sister.

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

Grant Holloway, already a three-time world champion, had been beaten into silver in the Tokyo final three years earlier; Paris gave him the one title he lacked.

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

Harrison Dillard, a world-record hurdler, failed to make the 1948 team in his own event, squeezed in as third man in the 100 m and won it, then took the hurdles title four years later.

Whose 12.12 from 2022 was the women's 100 m hurdles world record until 2026?

Tobi Amusan of Nigeria ran it in a world championship semi-final, then went quicker still in the final, 12.06, only for a tailwind over the limit to rule that one out as a record.

Whose 1988 world record of 12.21 in the 100 m hurdles stood for almost 28 years?

Yordanka Donkova, who lost three fingers of her right hand as a child, saw a Bulgarian clubmate take the record in 1987, then won it back weeks before her Olympic gold in Seoul.

Who broke the 100 m hurdles world record in July 2016, two weeks after failing to qualify for the Rio Olympics?

Kendra Harrison was only sixth at her national trials, then ran 12.20 in London to break a record from 1988, with the three women who took the Olympic places trailing in behind her.

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

United States: Brianna Rollins, Nia Ali and Kristi Castlin took all three medals, after national trials so fierce that the woman who broke the world record that summer finished only sixth.

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

Fanny Blankers-Koen, a 30-year-old mother of two, had also set world records in the high jump and long jump, but the rules let her enter only three individual events.

Which Australian won seven Olympic medals between 1948 and 1956, including two golds in the 80 m hurdles?

Shirley Strickland may have earned an eighth: a photo of the 1948 200 m finish, found in 1975, suggests she was third, not fourth, but she opposed taking her rival's medal away.

Nawal El Moutawakel's 1984 hurdles win was the first Olympic gold for which country?

Morocco had its first Olympic champion thanks to an upset in the first women's Olympic 400 m hurdles: a boycott kept away the Soviet and East German hurdlers who had swept the medals at the previous year's world championships.

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

122 races without defeat, heats included, across almost ten years; in the middle of the streak the 1980 boycott cost the unbeatable man an Olympic gold he could hardly have lost.

What was Edwin Moses' trademark stride pattern between hurdles?

A constant 13 steps, where rivals took 14 or 15: he worked out that it was the fastest way round, and at 6 ft 2 in he had the stride to hold it for a whole race.

What did Edwin Moses major in at Morehouse College?

Physics, on an academic scholarship, not an athletic one: Morehouse had no track of its own, so he trained at local high schools and largely coached himself.

Who ended Edwin Moses' 16-year hold on the world record at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics?

Kevin Young had written his target time, 46.89, on notes to himself; in the final he ran 46.78, the first lap of hurdles ever under 47 seconds.

Karsten Warholm's 45.94 was the 400 m hurdles world record until which rival ran 45.80 in 2026?

Alison dos Santos of Brazil was third behind Warholm in the 2021 Olympic final in a time that would have been a world record weeks earlier, and said it hurt; in Zürich he beat Warholm by almost a second.

Which country does Karsten Warholm represent?

Norway. Warholm began as an all-rounder, winning the world youth title in the eight-event octathlon in 2013, and only later settled on the one-lap hurdles.

Which American took the women's 400 m hurdles world record to 50.37 at the Paris Olympics?

Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone then switched to the flat 400 m and a year later won that world title too, in the second-fastest time ever: no one had been world champion at both before.

Which American won the 2024 Olympic 100 m hurdles by 0.01 seconds, then broke the world record in 2026?

Masai Russell ran 12.09 in Zürich with no wind to help her, a year after the Olympic champion had missed the medals altogether at the world championships.

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

Sally Gunnell completed the set the summer after her Olympic gold, winning the 1993 world title in a world record; she had started out as a long jumper and multi-eventer, not a hurdler.

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

Dalilah Muhammad ran 51.58 in the Tokyo Olympic final two years later, more than half a second inside that record of hers, and still had to settle for silver.

Which Dutch runner set the indoor 400 m world record, 49.17, in 2024?

Femke Bol, a world champion over the 400 m hurdles, set it winning the world indoor title in Glasgow, then gave up the hurdles in 2026 to race the 800 m and took a European medal in her first summer at it.

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

Antigua and Barbuda is his parents' homeland: born in New York, he ran for the islands as a teenager, then waited almost three years for clearance to switch to the American team in 2018.

Which Australian won the 2012 Olympic 100 m hurdles title, four years after taking silver in Beijing?

Sally Pearson shattered her wrist in a fall over a hurdle in 2015 and feared she might lose her lower arm, yet came back to win a second world title two years later.

John Akii-Bua's world-record 400 m hurdles win from lane one in 1972 was the first Olympic gold for which country?

Uganda's first Olympic champion never got the chance to defend his title: his country joined the African boycott of the next Games, in 1976, and by 1980 he was past his best.

The 110 m hurdles opens the second day of which Olympic event?

The decathlon ends day one with a 400 m, so its athletes face a row of barriers first thing the next morning; the women's heptathlon gets its hurdles race done first of all.

Which American won four world titles in the 110 m hurdles between 1995 and 2003, as well as Olympic gold in Atlanta?

Allen Johnson ruled the world championships for eight years, yet after Atlanta he never won another Olympic medal: fourth in Sydney, then out before the final four years later.

How does a hurdler's trail leg cross the barrier?

Bent, knee out sideways: the trail leg comes through flat, almost at a right angle to the body, so the hurdler stays low and lands sprinting instead of breaking stride.

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

The left leg lets the hurdler hug the inside line, whereas a right-leg lead on a bend risks swinging the back foot around the side of the hurdle instead of over it, which means disqualification.

Why was Bob Tisdall denied a world record for his winning time in the 1932 Olympic 400 m hurdles?

He knocked over a hurdle, the very last one, which under the rules of the day ruled out a record; it went instead to the American he had just beaten into second place.

The first 440-yard hurdles race, with twelve wooden barriers, was run around 1860 in which English city?

Oxford's barriers stood a metre high and were sunk into the ground, so they did not give when hit; lighter hurdles that a runner could push over came decades later.