Gold medal times in the sprint hurdles at the Summer Olympics 1896-2020

The men's 110 meter sprint hurdles has been a staple event at the Summer Olympics since the first event in 1896, while the women's event was introduced in an 80 meter format in 1932, before changing to 100 meters in 1972. For the men's event, ten hurdles (with a height of 1.067m) are placed along the lane in 9.14m intervals, with a 13.72m distance between the starting line and the first hurdle, and a 14.02m stretch from the final hurdle and the finishing line (the measurements were originally in imperial units, which explains their seemingly irregular distances). The women's 100m event, ten hurdles (with a height of 0.838m) are placed along the lane in 8.5m intervals, with a 13m distance between the starting line and the first hurdle, and a 10.5m stretch from the final hurdle and the finishing line. The current world record for men is 12.80 seconds, and for women it is 12.20 seconds.

Olympic records

In the Olympics, only two men and one woman have won multiple gold medals in their respective hurdle sprints, these were Lee Calhoun in 1956 and 1960, Roger Kingdom in 1984 and 1988, and Shirley Strickland in 1952 and 1956 (Strickland also won Bronze in 1948). The current Olympic record for men was set in the final of the 2004 event, whereas 2020's gold medallist set a new Olympic record of 12.26 seconds in that year's semi final. As with most track and field events, the USA has claimed the majority of gold medals; this is particularly true in the men's events, while athletes representing a much wider variety of nations have won gold in the women's events. Athletes from the United States have seen the most success in these events, winning 19 golds and 56 overall medals in the men's event, although the women's medal table is much closer, with the U.S. and Australia both having won four golds each.

Overlapping athletes

Unlike other sprinting events at the Olympics, there is very little crossover between athletes in these races and the hurdles, due to the specialist nature of the event. For example, while sprinters such as Jesse Owens and Carl Lewis found success in events such as the 100m, 200m and long jump, running in the hurdles requires different techniques and methods, therefore it is rare for a specialist hurdle sprinter to appear in other sprinting events at the top level (although some athletes do compete in both the 400m sprint and 400m hurdles). The only athletes to win golds in both the 100m sprint and 100m or 110m hurdles were Fanny Blankers-Koen in 1948, and Harrison Dillard in 1948 and 1952 respectively, although the crossover rate has decreased significantly since then.