When a women's hurdle race was introduced there were no uniform rules fixing the distance and the hurdle heights. It was only in 1926 that IAAF decided to fix the race distance to 80 m, a hurdle height of 0.76 cm and a distance between the 8 hurdles of 8 m. We had to wait till 1968 for the discipline to reach some maturity with the introduction of the 100 m. On this occasion the hurdle height was raised (a little bit) to 84 cm and the spacing of the 10 hurdles increased to 8.5 m.
In a post of mine I had already discussed the question of the women's hurdle height. Comparing the women's hurdle height to that of men's we find a ratio of 84/107=0.79. The ratio of mean statures of women and men is 0.92 and, what is perhaps more significant, the ratio of world high jump records is 0.85. Obviously the 84 cm hurdles are ridiculously low. In fact the ratio for the low, 400 m, hurdles is already 0.83. Had we applied the same ratio to the 100 m hurdles we would have ended up with a height of 89 cm.
What are the consequences of using such low hurdles for women? According to S. Hannan (ex-coach of S. Pearson) the low height of the hurdles allows for non-optimal styles. "One sees the hurdler's style going haywire over the hurdles. Using higher ones would oblige the athletes to streamline their technique".
Coach S. McGill points out that as the hurdles are low it does not take much effort to get over them, and as a consequence there is very little break in the sprinting stride.
In his own words
"Because of the low height of the hurdles, female hurdlers can get away with too many technical flaws, and, to me, this factor lies at the heart of why the hurdles need to be raised. Too many top-flight women hurdlers can get away with locking out their lead leg knee; too many top-flight women hurdlers can maintain their sprinting posture throughout hurdle clearance without bucking from the lower back; too many top-flight women hurdlers can get away with dropping their trail leg knee without driving it up in front; too many top-flight women hurdlers can get away with swinging their arms across their bodies without causing a major loss of balance.
In the male 110 m race, the best performers possess a combination of skills, of which speed is only one. In the men’s race, it is essential to be flexible, quick, strong, and technically efficient. In the women’s race, good speed is too often enough to get by on. To me, the fact that hurdlers can run fast times without hurdling efficiently verifies the belief that the event itself is flawed, and therefore needs to be amended".
Coach N. Stein concurs. He argues that the women's hurdles for specialists 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 be 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.
All of the cited specialists propose that the height of the 100 m hurdles be raised to 91 cm (which, by the way, is the height of men’s 400 m hurdles). This would probably necessitate a slight increase of the distance between the hurdles, perhaps from 8.5 to 8.8 m. The distance between the last hurdle and the finish line is already a mere 10.5 m and thus it is impossible to take out the 2.7 extra metres from the final part of the race. So, the only possibility would be to gain them in the initial 13 m separating the start from the first hurdle. Since most women hurdlers take 9 steps to the first hurdle, diminishing this distance could bring the number of their initial strides down to 7. Anyhow those are details which can be easily fixed once the major decision of raising the height is taken.
Given the resistance of the current champions to change (see my article on women's decathlon) one can fear a major outcry if the IAAF decided to raise the hurdles' height. In his article P.J. Vazel points out that olympic and world champion S. Pearson, had pronounced herself in favour of higher hurdles. Whether higher hurdles will someday be introduced by the IAAF/WA remains to be seen. However if we wish to have a technical parity between the men's and women's high hurdles this is something we should undertake without delay.
And just to finish on a technical point, what would be the expected world record if women started competing with 91 cm hurdles? Given that men's speed over the 110 m is roughly the same as that over 400 m hurdles we may expect women to follow the same pattern, due to the difficulty of the higher hurdles. Thus 13 s would be the barrier to break, but once real specialists of the high hurdles emerge I believe that the barrier will not resist for long.
In a post of mine I had already discussed the question of the women's hurdle height. Comparing the women's hurdle height to that of men's we find a ratio of 84/107=0.79. The ratio of mean statures of women and men is 0.92 and, what is perhaps more significant, the ratio of world high jump records is 0.85. Obviously the 84 cm hurdles are ridiculously low. In fact the ratio for the low, 400 m, hurdles is already 0.83. Had we applied the same ratio to the 100 m hurdles we would have ended up with a height of 89 cm.
What are the consequences of using such low hurdles for women? According to S. Hannan (ex-coach of S. Pearson) the low height of the hurdles allows for non-optimal styles. "One sees the hurdler's style going haywire over the hurdles. Using higher ones would oblige the athletes to streamline their technique".
Coach S. McGill points out that as the hurdles are low it does not take much effort to get over them, and as a consequence there is very little break in the sprinting stride.
In his own words
"Because of the low height of the hurdles, female hurdlers can get away with too many technical flaws, and, to me, this factor lies at the heart of why the hurdles need to be raised. Too many top-flight women hurdlers can get away with locking out their lead leg knee; too many top-flight women hurdlers can maintain their sprinting posture throughout hurdle clearance without bucking from the lower back; too many top-flight women hurdlers can get away with dropping their trail leg knee without driving it up in front; too many top-flight women hurdlers can get away with swinging their arms across their bodies without causing a major loss of balance.
In the male 110 m race, the best performers possess a combination of skills, of which speed is only one. In the men’s race, it is essential to be flexible, quick, strong, and technically efficient. In the women’s race, good speed is too often enough to get by on. To me, the fact that hurdlers can run fast times without hurdling efficiently verifies the belief that the event itself is flawed, and therefore needs to be amended".
Coach N. Stein concurs. He argues that the women's hurdles for specialists 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 be 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.
All of the cited specialists propose that the height of the 100 m hurdles be raised to 91 cm (which, by the way, is the height of men’s 400 m hurdles). This would probably necessitate a slight increase of the distance between the hurdles, perhaps from 8.5 to 8.8 m. The distance between the last hurdle and the finish line is already a mere 10.5 m and thus it is impossible to take out the 2.7 extra metres from the final part of the race. So, the only possibility would be to gain them in the initial 13 m separating the start from the first hurdle. Since most women hurdlers take 9 steps to the first hurdle, diminishing this distance could bring the number of their initial strides down to 7. Anyhow those are details which can be easily fixed once the major decision of raising the height is taken.
Given the resistance of the current champions to change (see my article on women's decathlon) one can fear a major outcry if the IAAF decided to raise the hurdles' height. In his article P.J. Vazel points out that olympic and world champion S. Pearson, had pronounced herself in favour of higher hurdles. Whether higher hurdles will someday be introduced by the IAAF/WA remains to be seen. However if we wish to have a technical parity between the men's and women's high hurdles this is something we should undertake without delay.
And just to finish on a technical point, what would be the expected world record if women started competing with 91 cm hurdles? Given that men's speed over the 110 m is roughly the same as that over 400 m hurdles we may expect women to follow the same pattern, due to the difficulty of the higher hurdles. Thus 13 s would be the barrier to break, but once real specialists of the high hurdles emerge I believe that the barrier will not resist for long.
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