Justin, IMHO, the reason for the great lack of improvement in the 110's is due to the specific nature of the event, that being the height and spacing of the hurdles. These exacting and limiting factors are not components of other races in our sport. The challenges facing those who would hurdle are many. You must be strong, flexible, have near world class speed for 100m, you must be absolutely fearless (try sprinting over 42" barriers with an 8lb pullover weight with people on either side of you hitting you with their hands - it's interesting to say the least!) and you must be extremely accomplished technically. Now throw in the fact that you must follow an exact stride pattern over those 10 barriers and you begin to understand why records do not fall as easily in this event. Improvements in the race are severely impacted by that 30 ft distance between those barriers, not to mention the height of the hurdles. I don't know of any world class American hurdler who doesn't have to chop or "cut" their stride to get their steps in between the hurdles when they are at top speed. If you watch old videos of Foster and Kingdom, there are races where they are virtually shuffling their feet between hurdles due to their size, stride length and speed. Think of what can happen in this race if you: get a little bit better start than you usually do, get 2-4 inches closer to the 1st hurdle and - Allen Johnson - hit the 1st barrier so hard with your lead leg that affects the entire rest of your race - Sydney Olympics, '00 Arthur Blake - don't get the lead foot up high enough due to the extra speed and hit the underside of the barrier and fall - '96 US Olympic Trials Have tremendous flat 100m speed or get little wind behind you or both and: Terrance Trammell - carry so much speed into the middle part of the race that you can't get your steps in between the hurdles - U.S. Nationals, '99 Dominique Arnold - ditto - US Olympic Trials, '00 Make one litle mistake in technique and: Mark Crear - dropped a trail leg toe, clipped a hurdle and hurdled sideways for 1/2 of the race finishing way back - World's '98?(unsure of date) Numerous athletes - drop a trail leg knee, hit a hurdle and fall - numerous races through the years Numerous athletes - swing a trail arm wide, hit another athlete, lose your rhythm and speed - many athletes in different races. There are several athletes out there who can challenge and possibly break the world record - Johnson, Crear, Arnold, Wade, Trammell, Garcia and others come to mind (Torain???) and there are probably others that escape my mind right now. To accomplish that feat they will have to execute the perfect race and with the factors of weather, hurdles, the restricting spacing and other factors that come with high level competition, it's a near impossibility. Brent McFarlane - Canadian Head Team Coach at the last Olympics calls Skeets Nehemiah the best technical hurdler there ever was - I'm not sure if he is correct (I'd put A. Johnson there) but who am I to argue - Brent knows hurdling!!! The best hurdle race I ever saw (on TV, not live) was Johnson's Olympic win in '96 where he ran 12.95. That's still .04 off of the world record but he hit 9!!!! hurdles in that race and just ran though 3 of them. It was an amazing effort. Some coaches I have talked to believe it was a 12.85 race if it had been "clean". Someday someone will break that record - 12.91 by Colin Jackson, U.K. - the athletes are already around who can do it - and - it won't surprise me if it happens this year but it also won't surprise me if it takes 10+ years to do it - the event is that hard and quirky. After 25 years of coaching, several All-Americans (DII) and having an athlete compete in the event at the U.S. nationals, I still learn something about the 110 hurdles every year I coach. And in the last couple of years, Darrell Smith has been one of those on this list who has greatly helped when I aksed him for suggestions about training - he know hurdles too! Regards, Michael Derrow Assistant Track Coach (Hurdles and Sprints) Wheeling Jesuit University Wheeling, WV
