On This Day

Hurdle Races in History

Athletics: Decathlon - Discus Throw - Hammer Throw - Heptathlon - High Jump - Javelin Throw - Long Jump - Marathon Running - Middle Distance Running - Pentathlon - Pole Vault - Race Walking - Relay Race - Shot Put - Sprinting - Triple Jump - World Championships in Athletics

Events in Sport

  • 1932-08-03 Official automatic timing & photo-finish camera for track events is used for the 1st time at Los Angeles Olympics, instrumental in changing 110m hurdles final, review gives Donald Finley bronze ahead of American Jack Keller
  • 1936-08-05 Italian athlete Ondina Valla runs a world record 11.6 in the semi finals of the 80m hurdles at the Berlin Olympics; wins final the next day but can't match the time
  • 1936-08-06 American athlete Forrest Towns runs world record 14.1 in 110m hurdles semi finals at the Berlin Olympics; later can't match the time but wins the gold medal in the final
  • 1948-08-04 An American sweep of the medals in the 110m hurdles at the London Olympics with William Porter taking gold, ahead of Clyde Scott and Craig Dixon
  • 1948-08-04 Fanny Blankers-Koen of the Netherlands wins the 80m hurdles in Olympic record 11.2 at the London Olympics; 2nd of unprecedented 3 individual track & field gold medals
  • 1948-08-06 Dutch super athlete Fanny Blankers-Koen wins London Olympics 200m in 24.4s to become the first women to claim 3 individual track & field gold at a Games, having already won the 100m and 80m hurdles
  • 1956-11-24 Glenn Davis leads an American trifecta in the men's 400m hurdles at the Melbourne Olympics; hurdles Olympic record equalling 50.1s to beat teammates Eddie Southern and Joshua Culbreath
  • 1956-11-28 Lee Calhoun leads an American trifecta in the men's 110m hurdles at the Melbourne Olympics; hurdles Olympic record 13.5s to beat teammates Jack Davis and Joel Shankle
  • 1956-11-28 Shirley Strickland de la Hunty of Australia retains her 80m hurdles Olympic title in OR 10.7s beating German Gisela Birkemeyer by just 0.2s at the Melbourne Games
  • 1958-08-06 American athlete Glenn Davis breaks his own world record by 0.3 (49.2) in 400m hurdles in Budapest, Hungary
  • 1960-09-02 Tamara & Irina Press (Soviet Union) become first sisters to win Olympic gold medals; Tamara wins Rome Olympics shot put one day after Irina takes out 80m hurdles
  • 1964-10-19 In a blanket finish in the 80m hurdles at the Tokyo Olympics, Germany's Karin Balzer and Teresa Cieply of Poland both record 10.5s with Pam Kilborn of Australia 10.6; Balzer is awarded the gold medal
  • 1968-10-15 British athlete David Hemery sets a world record 48.12s to beat Gerhard Hennige of West Germany and take the gold medal in the men's 400m hurdles at the Mexico City Olympics
  • 1968-10-18 A rare Australian 1-2 in track & field; Maureen Caird in Olympic record 10.39s beats teammate Pam Kilborn by 0.07s to win the 80m hurdles at the Mexico City Games
  • 1972-09-02 John Akii-Bua of Uganda with a world record 47.82 wins the 400m hurdles gold medal at the Munich Olympics
  • 1972-09-07 American Rod Milburn with a world record 13.24 wins the 110m hurdles gold medal at the Munich Olympics; just 0.10 seconds ahead of Frenchman Guy Drut
  • 1972-09-08 East German Annelie Ehrhardt with a world record 12.59 takes the 100m hurdles gold medal at the Munich Olympics; beats Romanian Valeria Bufanu by just 0.25
  • 1982-08-19 Renaldo Nehemiah of US sets record for 110 m hurdles, 12.93 sec
  • 1984-06-16 Edwin Moses wins his 100th consecutive 400-meter hurdles race
  • 1984-08-05 American super-hurdler Edwin Moses wins the 400m hurdles gold medal at the Los Angeles Olympics, his 105th consecutive race victory
  • 1984-08-06 After Americans Roger Kingdom & Greg Foster both equal the Olympic record in 110m hurdles semi's in Los Angeles, Kingdom beats Foster in the final in a new Games record 13.20 seconds
  • 1984-08-08 Nawal El Moutawakel of Morocco becomes the first female Olympic champion of a Muslim nation, and the first of her country in the 400m hurdles at the Los Angeles Olympics
  • 1985-01-27 Mark Mckoy cycles world record 50m hurdles indoor (5.25)
  • 1987-06-04 American hurdler Edwin Moses' 122 race winning streak which extends to nearly 10 years ends when he is beaten by countryman Danny Harris in Madrid, Spain
  • 1988-02-20 Cornelia Oschkenat hurdles indoor world record 50m (6.58 sec)
  • 1988-09-28 Australian Debbie Flintoff-King wins the 400m hurdles gold at the Seoul Olympics in 53.17, just 0.01 ahead of Tatyana Ledovskaya of the Soviet Union
  • 1989-03-08 Roger Kingdom runs indoor world record 60m hurdles (7.37 secs)
  • 1989-03-09 Roger Kingdom runs world record 60m hurdles indoor (7.36 sec)
  • 1990-02-04 Lyudmila Narozhilenko runs world record 60m hurdles indoor (7.69)
  • 1991-09-10 Gail Devers runs US female record 100m hurdles (12.48 secs)
  • 1993-08-19 Sally Gunnell runs women's world record 400m hurdles (52.74")
  • 1993-08-20 Colin Jackson runs world record 110m hurdles (12.91)
  • 1994-03-06 Colin Jackson runs world record 60m hurdles indoor (7.30 sec)
  • 2004-08-25 Greek athlete Fani Chalkia comes out of retirement to compete in her home Olympics in Athens; wins 400m hurdles gold medal in 52.82
  • 2004-08-26 Félix Sánchez wins the men's 400m hurdles 47.63 in Athens; the Dominican Republic's first ever Olympic gold medal
  • 2004-08-27 China's first ever gold in Olympic Games men's track and field; Liu Xiang wins 110m hurdles in Athens, equalling Colin Jackson's 1993 world record time of 12.91 seconds
  • 2008-08-18 An American 1-2-3 in the 400m hurdles at the Beijing Olympics; Angelo Taylor wins gold in 47.25 ahead of Kerron Clement and Bershawn Jackson
  • 2016-08-17 American sweep in 100m women's hurdles at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics with Brianna Rollins taking gold ahead of Nia Ali & Kristi Castlin; 1st time US has swept medals in an Olympic women's track & field event
  • 2021-08-03 Karsten Warholm of Norway runs first ever sub-46 second 400m hurdles 45.94 WR to claim gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics
  • 2021-08-04 Americans Sydney McLaughlin and Dalilah Muhammad go 1-2 in women's 400m hurdles at the Tokyo Olympics; McLaughlin sets WR 51.46s

Birthdays in Sport

  • 1881-09-08 Harry Hillman, American athlete (Olympic gold 400m, 200/400m hurdles 1904; silver 400m hurdles 1908), born in Brooklyn, New York (d. 1945)
  • 1902-01-22 Daniel Kinsey, American hurdler (d. 1970)
  • 1903-04-17 Morgan Taylor, American athlete (Olympic gold 400m hurdles 1924; bronze 1928, 32), born in Sioux City, Iowa (d. 1975)
  • 1907-05-16 Bob Tisdall, Irish athlete (Olympic gold 400m hurdles 1932 WR 51.7s; first man under 52s), born in Nuwara Eliya, Sri Lanka (d. 2004)
  • 1910-07-01 Glen Hardin, American athlete (Olympic gold 1936 400m hurdles), born in Derma, Mississippi (d. 1975)

Babe Didrikson Zaharias (1911-1956)

1911-06-26 American all-round athlete (10 LPGA major titles, Olympic gold 80m hurdles, javelin 1932), born in Port Arthur, Texas

Babe Didrikson Zaharias
  • 1913-10-31 Milton Green, American athlete (WR 45-yard high hurdles 5.8s 1935; WR 60m high hurdles 7.5s 1936), born in Lowell, Massachusetts (d. 2005)
  • 1914-02-06 Forrest Towns, American athlete (Olympic gold 110m hurdles 1936), born in Fitzgerald, Georgia (d. 1991)
  • 1918-03-01 Duncan White, Ceylonese athlete (first Olympic medallist from Ceylon, silver 400m hurdles 1948), born in Lathpandura, Sri Lanka (d. 1998)
  • 1923-07-08 Harrison Dillard, American athlete (Olympic gold 100m, 4×100m relay 1948; 110m hurdles, 4×100m relay 1952), born in Cleveland, Ohio (d. 2019)
  • 1925-07-18 Shirley Strickland, Australian athlete (Olympic gold 80m hurdles 1952, 56; 4 x 100m relay 1956), born in Sydney, Australia (d. 2004)
  • 1929-08-12 Charles Moore, American 400m hurdler (Olympic gold & silver 1952), born in Coatsville, Pennsylvania (d. 2020)
  • 1932-09-14 Joshua Culbreath, American 400m hurdler (Olympic bronze 1956), born in Norristown, Pennsylvania
  • 1933-02-23 Lee Calhoun, American athlete (Olympic gold 110m hurdles 1956, 60), born in Laurel, Mississippi (d. 1989)
  • 1935-08-22 Richard W Howard, American 400m hurdler (Olympic bronze 1960), born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
  • 1938-06-05 Karin Balzer, German athlete (Olympic gold 80m hurdles 1964; bronze 100m hurdles 1972), born in Magdeburg, Germany (d. 2019)
  • 1938-08-05 Hayes Jones, American athlete (Olympic gold 110m hurdles 1964), born in Sturksville, Mississippi
  • 1939-03-10 Irina Press, Soviet 80m hurdles runner and pentathlete (Olympic gold 1960, 64), born in Kharkiv, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union (d. 2004)
  • 1939-08-12 Pam Ryan-Kilborn, Australian hurdler (Olympic silver 1968)
  • 1943-06-08 Willie Davenport, American bobsledder and track athlete (Olympic gold 110m hurdles 1968), born in Troy, Alabama (d. 2002)
  • 1944-06-03 Eddy Ottoz, Italian athlete (hurdles) and coach, born in Mandelieu-la-Napoule, France
  • 1944-07-18 David Hemery, English 400m-hurdler (Olympic gold 1968), born in Cirencester, England
  • 1947-07-02 Ervin Hall, 100m hurdler (Olympic silver 1968), born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
  • 1949-11-17 Thomas Lionel Hill, American 110m hurdler (Olympic bronze 1972), born in New Orleans, Louisiana
  • 1949-12-03 John Akii-bua, Ugandan athlete (Olympic gold 400m hurdles 1972), born in Abako, Uganda (d. 1997)
  • 1950-05-01 Marina Stepanova, Russian athlete (3-time 400m hurdles WR; first woman to run sub 53s; 52.94s 1986), born in St. Petersburg, Russia
  • 1950-05-18 Rodney Milburn Jr, American athlete (Olympic gold 110m hurdles 1972), born in Opelousas, Louisiana (d. 1997)
  • 1950-06-18 Annelie Ehrhardt, German athlete (Olympic gold GDR 100m hurdles WR 12.59 1972), born in Hötensleben, Germany
  • 1951-07-14 Judi Brown, American 400m hurdler (Olympic silver 1984), born in East Lansing, Michigan
  • 1951-09-29 Maureen Caird, Australian hurdler (youngest to win individual Olympic Gold at 17 in 1968), born in Cumberland, Australia
  • 1952-09-13 Johanna Klier-Schaller, German 100m hurdler (Olympic gold 1976), born in Artern, Bezirk Halle, Germany
  • 1954-12-16 Joslyn Y Hoyte-Smith, Barbados, 4X400m hurdler (Olympic bronze 1980)
  • 1955-08-31 Edwin Moses, American 400m hurdler (2 Olympic golds), born in Dayton, Ohio
  • 1958-08-04 Greg Foster, American athlete (3 x World C'ship gold 110m hurdles; Olympic silver 1984), born in Maywood, Illinois (d. 2023)
  • 1958-09-22 El Hadji Dia Ba, Senegalese hurdler (Olympic silver 1988), born in Dakar, Senegal
  • 1959-03-24 Renaldo Nehemiah, American hurdler (110m at 12.93)/NFLer (SF 49ers)
  • 1960-04-20 Debbie Flintoff-King, Australian athlete (Olympic gold 400m hurdles 1988), born in Melbourne, Australia
  • 1960-06-14 Tonie Campbell, American athlete (World Indoor C'sship gold 60m hurdles 1987; World Cup gold 110m hurdles 1985; Olympic bronze 110m hurdles 1988), born in Los Angeles, California
  • 1961-07-06 Benita Fitzgerald-Brown, American 100m hurdler (Olympic gold 1984), born in Warrenton, Virginia
  • 1961-09-28 Yordanka Donkova, Bulgarian 100m hurdler (world record)
  • 1961-10-29 Cornelia Oschkenat, German hurdler, born in Neubrandenburg, East Germany
  • 1962-04-15 Nawal El Moutawakel, Moroccan athlete (Olympic gold 400m hurdles 1984), born in Casablanca, Morocco
  • 1962-06-01 Sherri Howard, American athlete (Olympic gold 4x400m hurdles 1984), born in Sherman, Texas
  • 1962-08-18 Sandra Farmer-Patrick, Jamaican-born American 400m hurdler, born in Kingston, Jamaica
  • 1962-09-23 Jack Warren Pierce, Cherry Hill NJ, hurdler
  • 1962-10-26 Roger Kingdom, American 110m hurdler (Olympic gold 1984, 88), born in Vienna, Georgia
  • 1963-08-06 [Michael] Tony Dees, Pascagoula Miss, hurdler
  • 1964-04-21 Ludmila Engquist, Swedish athlete (Olympic gold 100m hurdles 1996; World C'ship gold 1991 [rep. USSR], 97), born in Tambov Oblast, Russia
  • 1965-03-29 Voula Patoulidou, Greek athlete (Olympic gold 100m hurdles 1992), born in Tripotamo, Greece
  • 1966-07-29 Sally Gunnell, British 400m hurdler, (Olympic gold 1992), born in Chigwell, England
  • 1966-08-16 Rosey Edeh, Canadian 400m hurdler (Olympics-4-92, 96), born in London, England
  • 1966-09-16 Kevin Curtis Young, American 400m hurdler, born in Los Angeles, California
  • 1967-02-18 Colin Jackson, Welsh 100m hurdler (Olympic silver 1988), born in Cardiff, Wales
  • 1967-06-09 Robert Reading, American 110m hurdler, born in Buffalo, New York
  • 1968-01-09 Katie Anderson, Canadian 100m hurdler (Olympic 7th-92, 96), born in Kingston, Jamaica
  • 1968-04-08 Patricia Girard-Léno, French athlete (100m hurdles)
  • 1968-10-02 Mark Crear, American athlete (Olympic 110m hurdles silver 1996, bronze 2000), born in San Francisco, California
  • 1969-03-29 Kim Batten, American athlete (World C'ship gold 400m hurdles 1995; Olympic silver 1996), born in McRae, Georgia
  • 1970-07-02 Derrick Adkins, American athlete (Olympic gold 400m hurdles 1996; World C'ship gold 1995), born in Brooklyn, New York
  • 1971-03-01 Allen Johnson, American athlete (Olympic gold 110m hurdles 1996; World C'ship gold 1995, 97, 2001, 03), born in Washington, D.C.
  • 1971-03-13 Ryan Hayden, American athlete, 400m hurdler, born in Indianapolis, Indiana
  • 1972-04-27 Alison McKnight, 100m hurdler and heptathlete, born in Bakersfield, California
  • 1972-05-09 Simon Hollingsworth, Australian 400m hurdler (Olympics 1992, 96)
  • 1972-12-05 Randolph Ross, American 110m hurdler, born in Shelby, North Carolina
  • 1976-09-11 Flora Redoumi, Greek hurdler, born in Athens, Greece
  • 1979-02-02 Fani Chalkia, Greek athlete (Olympic gold 400m hurdles 2004), born in Larissa, Greece
  • 1979-03-24 Periklis Iakovakis, Greek athlete (400 meter hurdles)
  • 1983-03-01 Melaine Walker O.D, Jamaican athlete (Olympic gold 400m hurdles 2008; World C'ship gold 2009), born in Kingston, Jamaica
  • 1983-07-13 Liu Xiang, Chinese athlete (Olympic gold 110m hurdles 2004), born in Shanghai, China
  • 1984-07-07 Minas Alozidis, Greek-Cypriot hurdler
  • 1996-02-28 Karsten Warholm, Norwegian athlete (Olympic gold 400m hurdles WR 45.94 2021; World C'ship gold 2017, 19), born in Ulsteinvik, Møre og Romsdal, Norway
  • 1999-08-07 Sydney McLaughlin, American hurdler and sprinter, born in New Brunswick, New Jersey

Deaths in Sport

  • 1945-08-09 Harry Hillman, American athlete (Olympic gold 400m, 200/400m hurdles 1904; silver 400m hurdles 1908), dies of coronary thrombosis at 63

Babe Didrikson Zaharias (1911-1956)

1956-09-27 American all-round athlete (10 LPGA majors, Olympic gold medals 80m hurdles, javelin 1932), dies of colon cancer at 45

Babe Didrikson Zaharias
  • 1970-06-27 Daniel Kinsey, American hurdler (b. 1902)
  • 1975-02-16 Morgan Taylor, American athlete (Olympic gold 400m hurdles 1924; bronze 1928, 32), dies at 71
  • 1975-03-06 Glen Hardin, American athlete (Olympic gold 1936 400m hurdles), dies at 64
  • 1989-06-21 Lee Calhoun, American athlete (Olympic gold 110m hurdles 1956, 60), dies at 56
  • 1991-04-09 Forrest Towns, American athlete (Olympic gold 110m hurdles 1936), dies at 77
  • 1997-06-20 John Akii-bua, Ugandan athlete (Olympic gold 400m hurdles 1972), dies at 49
  • 1997-11-11 Rodney Milburn, American athlete (Olympic gold 110m hurdles 1972), dies in a work accident at 49
  • 1998-07-03 Duncan White, Ceylonese athlete (first Olympic medallist from Ceylon, silver 400m hurdles 1948), dies at 80
  • 2002-06-17 Willie Davenport, American bobsledder and track athlete (Olympic gold 110m hurdles 1968), dies from a heart attack at 59
  • 2004-01-25 Francina "Fanny" Blankers-Koen, Dutch athlete (Olympic gold 100m, 200m, 80m hurdles, 4x100m relay 1948), dies at 85
  • 2004-02-17 Shirley Strickland, Australian athlete (Olympic gold 80m hurdles 1952, 56; 4 x 100m relay 1956), dies at 78
  • 2004-02-21 Irina Press, Soviet 80m hurdles runner and pentathlete (Olympic gold 1960, 64), dies at 64
  • 2004-07-27 Bob Tisdall, Irish athlete (Olympic gold 400m hurdles 1932 WR 51.7s; first man under 52s), dies after a fall at 97
  • 2005-03-30 Milton Green, American athlete (WR 45-yard high hurdles 5.8s 1935; WR 60m high hurdles 7.5s 1936), dies at 91
  • 2019-11-15 Harrison Dillard, American athlete (Olympic gold 100m, 4×100m relay 1948; 110m hurdles, 4×100m relay 1952), dies at 96
  • 2019-12-17 Karin Balzer, German athlete (Olympic gold 80m hurdles 1964; bronze 100m hurdles 1972), dies at 81
  • 2020-10-08 Charles Moore, American 400m hurdler (Olympic gold & silver 1952), dies at 91
  • 2023-02-19 Greg Foster, American athlete (3 x World C'ship gold 110m hurdles; Olympic silver 1984), dies from amyloidosis at 64

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