Raising the Hurdles

[guruof track]

I have always thought they should raise boys HS hurdles to the 42' standard and raise womens hurdles to 36' inches? Thoughts

[gh]

The boys were 42-inch until some time around 1940.

[Speedfirst]

Re: Raising the Hurdles

I have always thought they should raise boys HS hurdles to the 42' standard and raise womens hurdles to 36' inches? Thoughts

IMO, I ma have to say no, because you have a frosh/soph level that will be scared of the 42". Also for the women as well you have the 2 levels and the younger athletes may be discouraged about hurdling.

[Andy4]

I think they should leave them just as they are for high school boys. I don't know about your state but in my state hurdling dosn't start until highschool, unless you do summer track. I think the progression of hurdles from youth to youngmen in USATF and then in highschool is at the right height.

[Marlow]

Re: Raising the Hurdles

I have always thought they should raise boys HS hurdles to the 42' standard and raise womens hurdles to 36' inches? Thoughts

Nope. That's be too high for your AVERAGE HS hurdler (think 17-18 seconds - that's average, not even below average). But I definitely think that the Intl women's hurdles should be 36".

[guruof track]

Re: Raising the Hurdles

I have always thought they should raise boys HS hurdles to the 42' standard and raise womens hurdles to 36' inches? Thoughts

IMO, I ma have to say no, because you have a frosh/soph level that will be scared of the 42". Also for the women as well you have the 2 levels and the younger athletes may be discouraged about hurdling.

But when your a freshman and a soph you can run JV and hurdle over JV heights (39'). Problem solved for men.

For women, IMO, the 33 inch barrier alloys for poor technique to win elite races FAR to often.

[skiboo]

Echo Marlow. I've argued strenuously on a number of occasions for REAL high hurdles for the women - 36". If the average difference in height between men and women is, say, in North America, approx. 3", then surely to some deity it shouldn't seem too unreasonable to expect the women can handle a 6" differential in barriers. The type of athlete who'd be most successful in the new race might be a slightly taller woman, though I suspect most of the current crop could adjust, with a spill or two.

I'd go one step further and advocate for a 110 metre race for women with 36" barriers. Hard to imagine anyone having beaten JJK on those terms. Dreschler and Wockel could have been superb there also.

[Marlow]

I don't think ANY 13.50 or better wHurdler would have any trouble going 3" higher, but it would change the event from a sprint to a hurdles race, which I think was the point in the first place. I'd guess the times would gain almost a full second. The current 100H record is only about a second slower than the flat time would have been for those runners (Devers never fully capitalized on her speed), but the men's 110H time is about 1.8 seconds slower. I'd guess the 36" 100H would result in a very comparable time to the mHurdles race.

[dukehjsteve]

I'd go one step further and advocate for a 110 metre race for women with 36" barriers. Hard to imagine anyone having beaten JJK on those terms. Dreschler and Wockel could have been superb there also.

I'm not a hurdle expert but I sure like the sounds of above. I ask you coach experts... can the gals, including HS, handle the distance between hurdles if they echo the men ? 110 meters , just like the men, except lower hurdle height. Current race for women is kind of ugly, with scant run in at the end.

[guruof track]

I'd go one step further and advocate for a 110 metre race for women with 36" barriers. Hard to imagine anyone having beaten JJK on those terms. Dreschler and Wockel could have been superb there also.

I'm not a hurdle expert but I sure like the sounds of above. I ask you coach experts... can the gals, including HS, handle the distance between hurdles if they echo the men ? 110 meters , just like the men, except lower hurdle height. Current race for women is kind of ugly, with scant run in at the end.

I'm not an expert either, but changing the actually LENTGH of the race would give me pause. The distance between mens hurdles and womens hurdle is significant enought to make a difference, considering that males stride patterns are longer, stride frequency is faster, and so forth..........that would be asking a bit much whn coupled with RAISING the hurdle.

[Speedfirst]

Re: Raising the Hurdles

[quote=guruof track]

I have always thought they should raise boys HS hurdles to the 42' standard and raise womens hurdles to 36' inches? Thoughts

IMO, I ma have to say no, because you have a frosh/soph level that will be scared of the 42". Also for the women as well you have the 2 levels and the younger athletes may be discouraged about hurdling.

But when your a freshman and a soph you can run JV and hurdle over JV heights (39'). Problem solved for men.

For women, IMO, the 33 inch barrier alloys for poor technique to win elite races FAR to often.[/quote:17k6zjrr]

But the problem as some have allude to here, is being competitive at that height (time wise). Sure you're gonna have some exceptions, but I think by and large the times are gonna be a lot slower across the board.

I do see what you're getting at however, it does have them more prepared to hurdle on the collegiate level.

[skiboo]

I'm not an expert either, but changing the actually LENTGH of the race would give me pause. The distance between mens hurdles and womens hurdle is significant enought to make a difference, considering that males stride patterns are longer, stride frequency is faster, and so forth..........that would be asking a bit much whn coupled with RAISING the hurdle.

Pertaining to how much farther the women'd have to run between barriers:

Men's hurdles : 9.14 meter spacing

http://www.iaaf.org/community/athletics ... =9428.html

Women's hurdles: 8.5 meter spacing.

Haven't we seen a fair number of women hurdlers chopping their stride to successfully navigate barriers? Gail Devers '92 comes to mind. So the extra 2 feet (9.14 meters - 8.5 meters and approximating) to run between barriers could be a good thing? Thoughts?

[guruof track]

I will concede that the first 4 or so years we would see a significant drop off, but I think eventually we would start seeing 13.7 and 13.8s on a yearly basis.

I am a former hurdler (albiet I contested the longer hurdles mostly), when we raised the heights in practice we didnt lose that mush time. I was a 14.8ish hurdler in HS, over 42's i would go 15flatish. We had a 14.4 hurdler who ran 14.5s over the 42s.

I don't think the 3inches affects people as adversly as we would like to think. And if it does, your probably not good (or decent) hurdler in the first place.

[GeorgiaFan1]

I think it would be dumb to raise high school hurdles for girls to a height that is higher than the international height. However, when I was checking 100H heights for middle school or junior high several years ago (I never found anything definitive), either Utah or Nevada was requiring 36 inches for the 300H race for both boys and girls - interpretation of Title IX or a misprint - I don't know which.

[guruof track]

I think it would be dumb to raise high school hurdles for girls to a height that is higher than the international height. However, when I was checking 100H heights for middle school or junior high several years ago (I never found anything definitive), either Utah or Nevada was requiring 36 inches for the 300H race for both boys and girls - interpretation of Title IX or a misprint - I don't know which.

Interesting analysis.

My comment about raising the women's hurdles was obviously at the international and collegiate levels.