Increase the Spacing

In last month’s issue of The Hurdle Magazine, we discussed the issue of whether or not the hurdles should be raised in the women’s 100 meter hurdle race. In that article, we also touched on the idea of increasing the spacing in the men’s 110 meter hurdle race. For this article, I would like to delve into that topic further, as it is one whose relevance seems to grow more evident with each passing year, even though it is not talked about nearly as much.

The problem as I see it is that there is no longer a sprint element in the men’s race. With all the advancements in modern track surfaces, shoe wear, weight training, nutrition, etc., not to mention the ever-increasing physical gifts of the athletes themselves, 110 hurdlers are having more and more trouble fitting in their three strides between the hurdles. It’s gotten to the point where it’s a rather weird race for the average track fan to watch, and there is no other hurdle race to which it is truly comparable. Modern elite 110 hurdlers look almost like race walkers between the hurdles, their hands and feet are so low.

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The current height of the hurdles (42 inches/107 centimeters) and current spacing between the hurdles (10 yards/9.14 meters) was established back in 1888. The three-step rhythm between hurdles was established in 1900 by Olympic gold medalist Alvin Kraenzlein (http://www.iaaf.org/disciplines/hurdles/110-metres-hurdles). So here we are 125 years later, still running the same race with the same spacing.

I’m sure that getting crowded between the hurdles is an issue that has been present since before I ever became aware of the hurdles. But for the purposes of this article, we’ll start with 1972 Olympic champion Rodney Milburn, who was the first hurdler to noticeably chop his steps in between the hurdles. Milburn’s natural foot speed was at a level that the event had never before seen.

After Milburn there were Greg Foster and Renaldo Nehemiah. Foster often got too crowded and crashed into hurdles. Not just because of his 6-3 height, but also because of his exceptional leg strength. I remember reading an article in which it was stated that, while at UCLA, he could leg press more weight than any member of the school’s football team. And Nehemiah has said that he would intentionally zigzag in the lane to create more sprinting space. He said he never stopped having trouble with lack of space issues.

After a while, hurdlers started learning to shuffle between the hurdles. I’m not sure exactly when this tactic started, but I would guess that Colin Jackson was the first one to employ this approach. Basically, hurdlers gave up on trying to sprint. Instead, they would run between the hurdles intentionally lowering their hands and knees, quickening their cadence.

In normal sprinting, the aim is to cycle your foot over your knee with each stride. For male hurdlers, such a high cycle motion was never possible. But in recent years, the cycle motion has continued to get lower and lower. For a while the idea was to cycle the foot over the calf, then it went to cycle the foot over the ankle. Now, as it was pointed out to me by an elite level hurdler recently, the best hurdlers have to think in terms of cycling over a pebble. Their feet are skimming so low above the track that they’re in danger of grabbing the track with their spike plate and stumbling prior to even reaching the hurdle.

But is this is a bad thing? Should there be more room to sprint? Couldn’t it be argued that the hurdlers who have raw sprint speed can just run the 100 meter dash? Isn’t the point of a hurdle race to equalize the strength of the raw sprinter? Why increase the spacing and bring such sprinters back to the hurdles? What would happen to all these great hurdlers who don’t have the raw speed to compete in the 100? Don’t many hurdlers run the hurdles because they know they don’t have the foot speed to run the 100? Isn’t the hurdles supposed to be an event that requires a multiplicity of skills, with speed just being one?

Yes, all of the above is true. But the men’s high hurdles will always be a hurdler’s event, not a sprinter’s event, regardless of the spacing, because of the height of the hurdles. When going over 42-inch barriers, you have to know how to hurdle. You can’t rely on just being fast and getting over them anyway anyhow. It’s not like the women’s race, where the hurdles are so low that speed becomes a premium, even more so than technique. For the men, increasing the spacing would merely allow the men to get their knees up a little higher, to run a little faster, but it wouldn’t change the overall dynamic of the event.

Thing about it is, increasing the spacing would benefit just about all 110 hurdlers, not just those at the elite level. Back in my day as a collegiate hurdler in the 1980s, I was running in the high to mid-15’s, and I can clearly remember getting crowded in races. In late-season workouts, I would move the hurdles in 3 feet to mimic how crowded I felt in a race. So if it was like that for me running 15.6, I can only imagine how crowded elite level hurdlers feel. But my point is, the argument that slower hurdlers would be negatively effected by an increase in spacing is a moot one, as even slower hurdlers have crowding issues over the 42’s.

It’s pretty obvious that the men’s race from back in 1888 wasn’t designed with the modern hurdler in mind. In 1888, there were no Terrence Trammells with 10-flat 100 meter speed running the hurdles. In other sports there have been all kinds of rule changes to accommodate the increased abilities of the athletes. That’s just part of the natural evolution of a sport. In football there have been all kinds of innovations with helmet gear, pads, etc. Just a couple years ago the kick-off was moved up so that there would be more touchbacks and less returns, ensuring that one of the games most dangerous plays – the kick-off return – would occur much less often. In basketball the lane was widened once it became obvious that dominant players like Wilt Chamberlain would be absolutely unstoppable if they could camp out in front of the basket the whole game. In the hurdles, let us not forget that after the 1968 Olympics, the women’s race did go from 80 meters to 100 meters, from 30 inch barriers to 33 inch barriers.

So if you look at the modern men’s race, it’s quite apparent that it’s time for an evolution. In The Hurdler’s Bible, Wilbur Ross makes the following argument:

“The question is: Should the present flight configuration be changed to fit the taller and faster performers? Our answer is yes. We are proposing a revision of spacing between the fifth and tenth hurdles – moving them from the present 9.14 meters to a new 9.44 meters apart in order to accommodate the lengthening of the stride that invariable occurs due to the speed generated over the first half of the race, and that is carried through the second half. Rather than force the athlete to cut back in order to conform to a now outdated configuration, we would revise the layout of the race, making it possible for the hurdler to maximize his speed without diminishing the demands of the present 110 meters course with its ten 42” hurdles placed at various intervals. This proposed changed would accommodate to the fact that the modern hurdler is taller and faster and enjoys the advantages of synthetic surfaces and lighter shoes with greater traction…” (306).

The only problem I have with Ross’ argument is a logistical one – that of having a shift in spacing in the middle of the race. While I see his point, to me, it’s valid that the spacing be consistent throughout the race and that the hurdlers be expected to adapt to it. I do agree with the amount of increased spacing he proposes, which basically amounts to one foot in American measurements. I know that when I have my hurdlers doing drills, if I increase the height of the hurdles, I’ll increase the distance between them with it. So if I have them going over 36 inch hurdles spaced 25 feet apart, I’ll give them 26 feet apart when I raise the hurdles to 39 inches. It only makes sense to increase the spacing when you increase the height because the higher hurdle means that you’ll land closer to the next hurdle, giving you less room to run.

So yes, if the women’s race were to change from a race over 33 inch hurdles to a race over 36 inch hurdles, then the spacing should be increased by about a foot too. In the case of the men’s race, the height is increased from high school to college – from 39 inches to 42 inches – but the distance between them stays the same. So that’s a built-in crowding issue for athletes making that transition.

I for one think that increasing the spacing would make for faster races, cleaner races, and more aesthetically pleasing races. Men’s hurdling would become less spectacle, more sport. And efficient technique would be easier to execute.

As with raising the height of the women’s hurdles, increasing the spacing of the men’s hurdles would best occur after an Olympic year, giving athletes time to adjust to the new race and providing a clear line of demarcation between the end of the old days and the beginning of a new day.

References

1. Ross, Wilbur. The Hurdler’s Bible. 1997. Print.

2. http://www.iaaf.org/disciplines/hurdles/110-metres-hurdles

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