Hurdles

Hurdling is a type of track and field race. There are sprint hurdle races and long hurdle races. The standard sprint hurdle race is 110 metres for men and 100 metres for women. The standard long hurdle race is 400 metres for both men and women. Each of these races is run over ten hurdles and they are all Olympic events.

Other distances are sometimes run, particularly indoors. The sprint hurdle race indoors is usually 60 metres for both men and women, although races 55 meters or 50 metres long are sometimes run. A 60 metre indoor race is run over 5 hurdles. A shorter race may have only 4 hurdles. The long hurdle race is sometimes shortened to 300 metres or 200 metres, usually for indoor or high school races.

There are two basic hurdle heights: high hurdles and intermediate hurdles. The sprint hurdle races (60 m, 100 m and 110 m) use high hurdles, which are 42 inches (1.07 m) high (39 inches, or 0.99 m, in U.S. high school competition) for men and 33 inches (.84 m) high for women. Long hurdle races (400 m) use intermediate hurdles, which are 36 inches (.914 m) high for men and 30 inches (.762 m) high for women. Slightly lower heights (generally 3 inches (76 mm) lower) are sometimes used in youth or high school events.

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