100m Hurdles

The 100 meter sprint hurdles is a track and field discipline for women. It employs the use of high hurdles (33 inches), which are spaced 8.5 meters apart. The first hurdle is placed 13 meters from the starting line while the last hurdle is located 10.5 meters from the finish line. The hurdles are positioned in such a way that they will tip over when a hurdler touches them. Like the 110 hurdle event, knocked-over hurdles don't amount to disqualification but they will most likely slow down a runner. Disqualification only occurs when there's a deliberate attempt by a runner to run a hurdle over. They are also begun in blocks, requiring an explosive start with a push of a leg, followed by 7 – 8 strides before the first hurdle.

Before the 100 hurdles was created, women participated in 80 meter hurdles, which was an official Olympic event from 1932 to 1968. During the 1972 Summer Olympics however, the distance was lengthened to 100 meters.

The hurdles sprint event has been a part of women's athletics since the end of World War I. There were many erratic variations of the hurdles, such as the height of the hurdles and the distance. To be precise, there were 8 different disciples in 1926, as declared by the International Women's Sports Federation: the 60 yards / 75 cm hurdle height, the 60 yards / 61 cm, 65 yards/ 75 cm, 83 yards/75 cm, 100 yards/75 cm, 100 yards/61 cm, 120 yards/75 cm and 110 meters/75 cm. The first Women's World Games introduced the 100 meter hurdle race in 1922. However, from 1926 to 1968, only the 80 meter hurdle race was ran by women in official games, and it was only accepted as an Olympic event in 1932.

As of April 2007, the current world record for the 100 meter hurdle event is 12.21 seconds, and it belongs to Yordanka Dorkova from Bulgaria. There is precisely a 1.5 second difference between this record and the time record of the staright-up 100 meter sprint race. A very close second would be Ginka Zagorcheva, also Bulgarian, who had a stunning record time of 12.25 seconds, only 0.04 seconds slower than Dorkova. The first officially recorded record in a 100 meter race using standard hurdles is 15.1 seconds by Connie Peterson of U.S.A.