The Shubenkov Factor
Whenever a new hurdler emerges upon the world stage and makes an undeniably meaningful impact, that hurdler’s ascension must be noted, and we must all ask, what is he doing that enables him to run so fast. In the men’s 110 meter high hurdles, it seems like there is someone new emerging every year. Since Allen Johnson’s long reign as the world’s best in the mid-90’s to 2003, we have seen super seasons from super hurdlers like Liu Xiang, Dayron Robles, David Oliver, and Aries Merritt. In 2014, France’s Pascal Martinot-Lagarde dominated the Diamond League meets and appeared to be the next great 110 hurdler on the rise.
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This year, the usual suspects were having very good seasons heading into the World Championships in Beijing, while some new (or not so new, in some cases) faces seemed primed to make a breakthrough. Among those were Omar McLeod and Hansle Parchment of Jamaica, Martinot-LaGarde and Garfield Darien of France, and we cannot forget Orlando Ortega of Cuba, who was ineligible to compete at Beijing but had won a couple big Diamond League meets before then.
But none of these guys ended up being the guy who took control of the event at Worlds and for the rest of the latter part of the season. The man who did that was 23-year-old Sergey Shubenkov of Russia, who won worlds in a personal best 12.98. If you’ve been paying attention over the last four years, you’ve noticed Shubenkov as someone who has consistently been “in the mix” in Diamond League meets and big international meets, including a bronze at the 2013 WC’s. Of course, if you were anything like me, you were much more focused on the 1-2 finish by Oliver and Ryan Wilson that year, and didn’t pay much attention to third place.
Sometimes, hurdlers don’t make the leap to being among the best to being the best. Merritt was a very good hurdler for a long time before finally breaking out with a season for the ages in 2012. Oliver labored in the bronze medal zone for a long time before finally earning a gold in 2013. Rare is the athlete who breaks through immediately, like a Xiang or a Renaldo Nehemiah way back in the day.
With the emergence of Martinot-Lagarde last year, and the rise of Ortega earlier this year, not many people had Shubenkov on their radar as someone who could emerge as the number one 110 hurdler in the world. If anything, McLeod’s 12.97 at the Jamaican National Championships in June had many of us looking to see if he was going to build on that performance.
While I cannot claim that I predicted a Shubenkov party in Beijing (and beyond), I can say that I have always liked his technique. When talking hurdles with other hurdle nerds, I would always say that Shubenkov had solid technique, and that the other guys needed to look out for him. But I was thinking more in terms of 2016 or later, not the here and now.
So, what does Shubenkov do? What has made him a World Champion, the best hurdler in the event, and the early favorite for gold in 2016? Let’s take a look.
To me, Shubenkov’s major strengths are his lead arm and his lean. Let’s talk about the lead arm first. It seems to be an improved version of the Liu Xiang lead arm in that it stays on the same side of the whole body throughout hurdle clearance. It punches up and punches down very efficiently, with no wasted motion at all. Liu’s lead arm would always go too far behind his back during descent off the barrier, which was the only flaw I ever saw in Liu’s technique.
Ironically (or perhaps I should say oddly), Shubenkov’s trail arm isn’t as efficient. It tends to flare out away from his body, which I think causes his trail leg to be wider than it needs to be. So there is some lateral movement in his hurdling action that could be corrected to make him even faster. The tight action of the lead arm is what enables him to maintain quick hurdle clearance.
It also seems to me that Shubenkov uses his arms between the hurdles more than most hurdlers do. I don’t know if this is necessarily a good thing, but I do think it is in Shubenkov’s case, as it sets up the lead arm action before he even gets to the hurdle, and he does get his feet down quickly in his strides between the hurdles.
As for his lean, that is where I think Shubenkov gains his biggest advantage. Anyone who knows me knows I’m big on a deep forward lean during hurdle clearance, and Shubenkov’s is among the best I’ve ever seen. He pushes his chest down over his lead leg, creating a forceful snapdown action with the lead leg while also enhancing his forward momentum coming off each hurdle. Notice how, in the video below, Shubenkov accelerates off each hurdle. That’s because his forward lean is pushing him forward. He is accelerating without even trying to.
The video above is from the Diamond League meet in Zagreb a couple weeks ago, where Shubenkov ran 13.12 and won by four tenths. This video has several replays allowing us to see Shubenkov’s race from multiple angles. On the head-on replay angles, you can see the tight action of the lead arm and the issues with the trail arm and trail leg. I think that if he fixes the trail arm, the trail leg will fix itself.
Regarding the lean, the only think I don’t like about it is how Shubenkov ducks his head down after he has already leaned effectively during take-off. It’s an extra, unnecessary motion, and it causes his lead leg to kick out even though it’s ready to cycle downward. It’s probably an old habit that has become ingrained, so he still does it even though he no longer needs to. Between keeping the trail arm tight and eliminating the duck-down, Shubenkov could be a consistent 13.00 guy. He’s still young, so we’ll see what happens.
All in all, I wouldn’t put Shubenkov on the level of a Liu or a Robles, or of an Oliver or a Merritt, just yet, but I see him heading in that direction. What I also like about Shubenkov is that he seems to have good sportsmanship. When he wasn’t the one winning races, he also congratulated those who did. So it’s nice to see him have this success.
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