Liu Xiang sets the World 110m Hurdles record in Lausanne (© AFP / Getty Images)
MonteCarloThe Hurdling highlights of 2006. Renowned statisticians A. Lennart Julin and Mirko Jalava continue their end of season event category reviews - Part Four of eight installments - the HURDLES.
MEN – Hurdles
110m Hurdles
The men’s 110m Hurdles stole the show during the 2006 season. For the first time three men recorded sub-13 second performances with one additional at exactly 13.00. 23-year-old Chinese Liu Xiang grabbed two World Athletics Tour GP wins in Osaka and Eugene with relatively slow times before failing to perform at the Paris Golden League meeting. But he bounced backdramatically, in Lausanne bettering the World record of 12.91s that he (2004) and Colin Jackson (GBR, 1993) and himself (2004), with a blistering 12.88 time. 33-year-old American Dominique Arnold, who had lead for most of the record race in Lausanne, finished a close second in 12.90 which gives him the second place on the World all-time list ahead of Jackson.
Liu Xiang did have to attend many kinds of gatherings following his World record. Because of extensive media interest, he had to fly straight back to China following his record breaking performance and returned to competition only four weeks later at the National Championships. The young Chinese returned to international competition at the World Athletics Final and when no-one predicted he would perform well following his break from competition, did exactly that ran fast again. His 12.93 win into a 0.6 metres per second headwind was impressive, but there was more to come. Liu Xiang certainly did not disappoint at the World Cup finishing second in 13.03, but 35-year-old Allen Johnson (USA) was the star of the day clocking a decisive 12.96 winning mark. This was the eighth season Johnson has recorded results under 13 seconds and his 11th career sub-13 clocking.
But the sprint hurdles season included more highlights. One of them was 20-year-old Dayron Robles (CUB) who equalled Anier García’s Caribbean and Central American record of 13.00 at the World Athletics Final finishing second behind Liu Xiang. The young Cuban had a fine season a total of four races below 13.10s. Terrence Trammell’s (USA) season best 13.02 came in the World record race and on most seasons it would have been enough to be the world leading time, but in 2006 it only ranked fifth in the year list. There were 24 athletes under 13.40s this season, in 2005 it was the same 24, 29 in 2004 and 19 in 2003. USA is the best country with 28 athletes in the world top 100, Brazil has seven.
110m Hurdles World Ranking
110m Hurdles Performance List
400m Hurdles
This year only four athletes went under 48 seconds with Kerron Clement (47.39) and Bershawn Jackson recording the fastest times at the US Championships.
Although the two Americans topped the year lists, it was Greek Periklís Iakovákis who recorded the most impressive season in 2006. The 27-year-old who finished third at the 2003 World Championships, started in 11 finals during the summer won seven of them, and finished second in the rest. He also set a national record of 47.82 in Osaka in May and won the European Championships. Furthermore he took big wins with impressive times in Zürich and the World Athletics Final in Stuttgart, he was timed 47.92 on both occasions. Bershawn Jackson, who was the best 400m hurdler last season, had a good start to his year, but after not finishing the race in Réthimno in July, he did not come back to the same level he had before. World leading American champion Kerron Clement (47.39) did not perform well when he came to Europe after the US Championships in July. Clement however did better his performances winning the World Cup in Athens (48.12) and the Super meeting in Yokohama after that. The weakness of the season was that there were only 13 athletes at 48.75 of better, very modest compared to the 22 in 2005. In 2004 there were 24 and 18 in 2003. The last time there were so few under 48.75 was in 1994(!). USA is the top country with 28 athletes in the world top 100, Jamaica has nine and Japan seven.
400m Hurdles World Ranking
400m Hurdles Performance List
WOMEN - Hurdles
100m Hurdles
Just like the men's 110m Hurdles this is an event where everybody seems to compete against everybody else everywhere and everyday. Statistically this shows up in the fact that 21 athletes dipped under 12.80 a total of 125 times, i.e. on average six times each.
The closeness at the top is illustrated by the fact that the six Golden League-races saw four different winners: Michelle Perry and Susanna Kallur twice each and Brigitte Foster-Hylton and Virginia Powell once each. The reigning World Champion Perry also won the World Athletics Final plus the Super Grand Prix meets in Lausanne, Stockholm, and Monaco, giving her the strongest overall seasonal record.
Just like their male counterpart the female high hurdlers are demonstrating the importance of experience in this event: The average age of the 2006 top-10 was 27 years and among the top-20 there was only one – Nigerian Josephine Onyia – under the age of 23. Onyia fresh out of the junior age-group improved by over half second in 2006 and could very well be a star in the making. But the major revelation of this year was still Ireland's Derval O'Rourke who at age 25 rose from "the anonymous pack" to get the World Indoor gold and the European outdoor silver.
Nation-wise the clear market leader is the USA (top-3 and 5 of top-10) with Jamaica and Canada competing for second place. At the same time Russia is conspicuous by its absence in the uppermost echelon: Despite a strong tradition in the event and despite its current impressive standard in almost all other events for women the leading Russian is down in 20th place and she has the company of only four countrywomen in the top-50 for 2006!
Looking at the general statistical picture the list for 2006 is more or less a carbon copy of the previous year regardless if you look at top-10, top-25, top-50 or top-100.
100m Hurdles Performance List
400m Hurdles
Only one of the expected major players had a full 2006 season: USA's Lashinda Demus who assembled seven of the top ten times of the year and who won eleven of her fourteen competitions. The only thing missing was the sub-53 mark as she ended up with 53.02 and 53.07 as her two fastest.
The other two - Australia's Jana Pittman and Russia's Yuliya Nosova-Pechonkina - both had very limited years. Pittman choose to end her 2006 by winning (in 53.82) the Commonwealth Games in March (to take maternity leave) and Nosova- Pechonkina limited herself to two races in September: 53.14 at home in Moscow and 53.88 at the World Cup winning over Demus.
Olympic Champion Faní Halkiá's (GRE) return to form after missing 2005 also produced just a handful of competitions with her 53.71 in 2nd behind Demus in Athens in June and the 54.02 in the European Championships the highlights. But in Gothenburg she was quite unexpectedly run down in the finishing straight by Russia's Yevgeniya Isakova who at age 27 dipped under 54 for the very first time.
Although the top-10 includes three athletes born in the 1970's – and two born in the 1960's!! – it appears that a new generation of hurdlers born in 1982 and 1983 is gradually taking control: This year they occupied positions 1, 4, 5, 6 plus another seven places in the top-20. Perhaps the youngest of this group is the most exciting prospect: 22-year-old Vanya Stambolova (BUL) successfully concentrated on the 400m flat this summer but if she can transfer that improvement as a runner into her previous specialty the present hurdles hierarchy in general even the World record could come under serious threat!
It is also interesting to note that the standards now are very similar to those twenty years ago. Then the event was still quite young which caused observers to state that standards "of course" would improve markedly and rapidly in the future. Obviously they underestimated the athletic quality of the "pioneer generation", which is something well worth remembering today when we also try to forecast the future of the women's steeplechase.
400m Hurdles World Ranking
400m Hurdles Performance List