2008 - End of Year Review - HURDLES

Monte-Carlo - The Hurdling highlights of 2008. Renowned statisticians A. Lennart Julin and Mirko Jalava continue their end of season event category reviews - Part Four of eight installments - the HURDLES.

MEN

110m Hurdles

22-year-old Dayron Robles, who had failed to perform to his expected level at the World Championships final in Osaka, finishing fourth, being one of the favourites there, started the 2008 indoor season with a bang.

The young Cuban only missed Colin Jackson’s (GBR) World indoor record 7.30s by a mere 0.03 seconds clocking 7.33 Caribbean indoor record over 60m hurdles in Düsseldorf in February.

Robles seemed to move from one win to another clocking several fast times while best of his opponents, 2007 World champion and world record holder Liu Xiang was hampered by injuries and decided not to compete at all before the Valencia World Indoor Championships.

Valencia again did not live up to expectations for Robles with the Cuban put to the same heat with Liu and failing to start the race properly because he had thought Liu had false started. Liu went on to capture an easy world indoor title and Robles was naturally disappointed, again.

But Robles got what he wanted during the outdoor season. It all started with a narrow loss in Berlin to David Oliver (USA, 13.19 to 13.20), but that was the Cuban’s last loss prior to Beijing. In China, Liu was clearly still injured and could not even walk properly before his heat. The Chinese star had won comfortably in Osaka (13.19) and Beijing (13.18) in May before being disqualified at the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, but was unable to compete after that due to an injury.

Robles on the other hand had almost a perfect season, in Ostrava on June 12 he broke Liu’s World record by one hundredth of a second clocking 12.87 and followed that with three more sub 13-second performances before Beijing. In the Olympic final Robles took the gold in style clocking 12.93 with David Payne (USA) far behind in 13.17 for the silver. Although Robles lost to Oliver again in Lausanne in September (13.02 to 13.17) he also added two more races under 13 seconds for a huge total of seven of them during the 2008 season.

USA clearly has the best depth in this event with 37 athletes in the world top 100. Germany, France and China are all tied for second with six.

Men’s 400m Hurdles

In the men’s 400m Hurdles, no athlete was able to dominate the whole season. 25-year-old Bershawn Jackson (USA), World champion in the rain of Helsinki 2005, came closest with his good early season run. The American started his season with four wins including Golden League meets in Berlin and Oslo at the start of July. But following his US Trials win later in June he seemed to lose some of his momentum and got the bronze medal in Beijing.

Later in the season it seemed Kerron Clement (USA), the 2007 World champion was going to win at the Olympics as he won five out of six finals before Beijing only surrendering at the US Trials. Clement also was the world leader prior to Beijing with 47.79 and had a run of good wins in Rome, Paris and London before the Olympics.

But in the final there was only one man who was going to win it. 29-year-old American Angelo Taylor grabbed another Olympic gold in addition to the win from Sydney 2000. Taylor had been quiet in 2007 and had certainly not done anything special before the Olympics in 2008. He came to Beijing having a best finish at third twice (US Trials and Paris) and only a season’s best of 48.42. Yet at the Olympics it was clear he had only been focused on one thing this season, the victory in Beijing.

A 47.94 performance in the semifinal was just a warning before a rampant 47.25 clocking in the final to win by more than 0.7 seconds before Kerron Clement, who finished in 47.98 for the silver medal. Taylor later added another gold medal running the second leg in the US relay team winning the 4x400m relay with Clement also getting the gold medal running the heat for the US team.

USA is strongest country here too with 30 athletes in the world top 100. Japan is a clear second with 10 and Jamaica has six for the third place.

WOMEN

100m Hurdles

This probably is the event with the deepest group of top athletes, there seem to always be some 15-20 hurdlers capable of winning a given race and it is almost always impossible to foresee the outcome of the next major championship one year in advance.

Just compare 2007 and 2008: The top-5 statistically in 2007 were Perry, Powell, Felicien, Kallur and Ennis-London at 12.44-12.50, in 2008 instead Jones, Cherry, Foster-Hylton, Onyia and McLellan at 12.43-12.53! And to top it off: The Olympic medals went to Harper, McLellan and Lopes-Schliep in a race where places 2 to 6 finished within a mere two hundredths!

It could be said that the situation was extreme this summer with Perry, Felicien and Kallur all having serious injury problems. But it must still be considered remarkable that there are so many athletes of more or less identical ability without anyone – or "any two" – standing out from the rest.

And especially that the would-be Olympic champion Dawn Harper had finished 3rd, 6th, 2nd, 3rd, 3rd and 5th in her six major competitions leading up to Beijing. Her only win came in mid-May at a minor national event where she faced only one other hurdler of significance.

Harper, McLellan and Lopes-Schliep probably was the most surprising podium constellation in athletics at the Beijing Olympics. Even when just a couple of hurdles remained in the final it looked very much that it would be an emphatic win for Lolo Jones. And Jones was the overwhelming favourite after an impressive string of wins and fast times from mid-June and onwards.

Her 12.43 PB in the semi had further strengthened her status as the favourite. But then Jones hit a hurdle late in the final, stumbled badly, was lucky to stay on her feet but dropped within just a blink of the eye from a gold glimmering 1st to an also-ran in 7th place.

Just as disappointing was the summer for Susanna Kallur who during the winter had compiled the greatest season ever at 60m Hurdles topped by a 7.68 time which was a new World Indoor record, one hundredth faster than the 18 years old mark of Ludmila Narozhilenko. But then hamstring problems and – what was finally diagnosed as – a stress fracture to the fibula spoiled the rest of 2008.

First the injuries forced her to abandon the World Indoors in Valencia at the semi final stage and then they also stopped her from competing for two months leading up to Beijing. There in the Bird's Nest her Olympic dream was finally shattered when she fell – for the first time ever in her whole hurdling career – in the semi final.

Looking to the future there are lots of interesting questions to be answered. How many of those athletes hampered by injuries in 2008 will be able to return in full force in 2009? Will Dawn Harper be able to confirm her status as Olympic champion? Will "new generathon" of Josephine Onyia and Sally McLellan be able to continue their progress further?

Both of them not only improved their top times by almost two tenths in 2008 but also raised their competitiveness accordingly. Onyia won two of the Golden League races and McLellan as mentioned got the Olympic silver medal.

400m Hurdles

This event had a remarkable slow start to the season. The top-2 in Osaka last year – Jana Rawlinson and Yuliya Pechonkina – had had to quit the season due to health reasons and in late July with one major meet (Monaco) remaining there had been just one single sub-54 mark recorded. And that was even by the scantest of margins (0.01 second) by an athlete – Lashinda Demus – who had failed to qualify for the Olympics.

This really looked like a major down year for the event and the prospects for Beijing certainly appeared really bleak. But then something suddenly happened: In the final tune-up meet - Monaco on 29 July – the trio Melaine Walker, Tiffany Ross-Williams and Sheena Tosta pushed each other down to the 53.5-level.

Finally, the event had come alive and given the history, one could expect that several more would dip under 54 at the Olympics. However, both the heats and the semi-finals in Beijing turned out quite uneventful. Most remarkable in the semis were the new seasonal best by Tasha Danvers (54.31) and the new personal best by Anastasiya Rabchenyuk (54.60). One could also observe that list leader Melaine Walker still had serious problems with her step pattern.

So although Walker still was the favourite she appeared vulnerable as the event felt so close that one minor stop at a hurdle could become decisive. But that turned out to be a complete misjudgement: Because even if Walker stuttered markedly at a couple of hurdles in the final she completely demolished the field winning by close to ten meters.

Not because the others ran slowly but because Walker with her 52.64 ran one of the fastest races in the history of the event lowering her PB by 0.84 and missing the World record by just 0.30! As it so clearly was a so far from perfect race technically the conclusion is inevitable: The World record is Walker's whenever she manages to avoid any major disturbance of her running rhythm.

In the wake of Walker three more runners dipped under 54 seconds: Sheena Tosta 53.70, Tasha Danvers 53.84 and Anastasiya Rabchenyuk 53.96, the latter two significantly lowering their PB's. But the complete avalanche timewise one could have expected did not happen and overall this Olympic year ended somewhat down compared to expectations – with Melaine Walker of course being the main exception.

By improving 1.5 seconds from last year she has gone from a World Championships semi-finalist to an Olympic champion and a serious World record challenger.

IAAF