Women’s 400m Hurdles: Kaliese Spencer All the Way
As with the men’s 400 meter hurdles, 2014 was definitely a down year in the women’s 400m hurdles as well. Again, we can attribute that to the lack of a major world championship being contended, as well as the physical demands of the event. But still, a little more intensity from more hurdlers would’ve been nice.
The three medalists from the 2013 World Championships were pretty much missing in action in 2014. Gold medalist Zuzana Hejnova of The Czech Republic, who won with a winning time of 52.83, finished 2014 with a season’s best of 55.86, good for 7th place at the Diamond League meet in Monaco, and a mere 35th in the world. Silver medalist Delilah Muhammad of the US, who ran 54.09 in the WC finals, finished 2014 with a season’s best of 58.02, ranking her 151st in the world in terms of time. Long-time American stand-out Lashinda Demus, who finished third at the 2013 World Championships with a 54.27 after leading for eight hurdles, had a season’s best of 55.17, making her the 17th-fastest in the world in 2014.
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So with so many top hurdlers having down years, holding it down for the women was Jamaica’s Kaliese Spencer, who didn’t medal in the 2013 World Championships due to a controversial disqualification in a preliminary round. Perhaps still a bit ticked off about that disappointment, Spencer was dominant in 2014, defeating anyone and everyone lined up against her. Her season’s best of 53.41 came at the Jamaica National Championships in late June. Other than Kori Carter, Spencer was the only female hurdler to run under 54.00, and she did so four times. She ended the season with 8 of the 10 fastest times in the event.
Spencer on her way to victory in Brussels.
After winning her national championships, Spencer went on to reign supreme on the Diamond League circuit. She finished first in Monaco, Glasgow, Brussels, Rome, Birmingham, the Prefontaine Meet in Oregon, and she also won the Continental Cup in Marrakech to finish out the season in mid September. Her only loss of the season came in Doha way back on May 9th, where she finished second to Adekoya Oluwakemi of Bahrain.
Besides Spencer, the hurdlers in this event who were most impressive on a consistent basis were Georganne Moline of the US and Eilidh Child of Great Britain. Moline finished second to Carter at the US Championships in late June, running 54.00 to Carter’s 53.84. Moline also finished second to Spencer in Rome (54.56) and Monaco (54.73), and she finished first in Ponce (54.67) earlier in the season. Child, who finished 5th at the 2013 World Championships in 54.86 and ran a personal best of 54.22 in 2013 at Birmingham, finished with a season’s best of 54.39 in Glasgow. She finished first in Zurich with a 54.48, and was second to Spencer in Marrakech in 54.42.
Moline competes at the USA Champs.
As for Carter, she impressed mightily at the US Championships with her 53.84 there, but disappeared after that. While there were some good performances by some other athletes, nothing happened to make you think we’re about to see the second coming of Kim Batten.
Carter on her way to victory at USA’s.
While I don’t want to pontificate too much, I do want to say that my opinion of down years in track and field is that they really, really suck. In all the hurdling events in 2014, there was a significant drop-off in the level of competitive intensity. In the women’s 400 hurdles, it’s hard to know why certain athletes didn’t compete very well – or didn’t compete at all – but you’d have to assume that in a Championship or Olympic year, the likes of Hejnova, Carter, Demus, and others would have raced much more often and much better.
In last month’s issue, I lamented a similar drop-off in the men’s 400 hurdles, where no one broke 48.00, and many of the top stars had subpar seasons. If you look at all four hurdling events as a whole, you can point to Spencer, Dawn Harper-Nelson, Queen Harrison, Javier Culson, Michael Tinsley, Pascal Martinot-Lagarde, and Orlando Ortega as hurdlers who either maintained a high level of excellence or who stepped up in a big way. But overall, the lack of a major world championship meet seems to have led many to approach 2014 as a year off, a chance to recharge, to heal, to gear up for the next three upcoming years.
I remember when speaking with Jon Hendershott of Track & Field News about this topic of down years, he argued that there really is no such thing, that at the elite level there is still the Diamond League circuit and plenty of financial motivation to keep athletes at the top of their games. But I’m just not seeing it. And I have to admit that it makes sense: athletes have every right to give their bodies some time to heal during a year when there is nothing major at stake. I don’t blame them or fault them for looking ahead to 2015 and the 2016 Olympic Games.
In this day and age, I think it just makes sense to have a World Championships every non-Olympic year so that a year like 2014 doesn’t happen again. And even though the focus here is on the hurdles, the general level of apathy was evident in many events in 2014. That can’t be good for the sport.
But getting back to the women’s 400 hurdles (I don’t want to preach too much, just a little bit), I expect that the likes of Demus and Hejnova will be back in top form, that Spencer, Carter, and Moline should continue to stay in the hunt, and that Child will be a major contender for a World Championship medal. I also expect that new young rising talents will emerge to challenge the more established veterans.
Footage of Spencer’s Diamond League victory in Brussels in 54.12.
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