Are the height of women's hurdles too low?

They are not too low in the 100 hdls. They still have to 3 step and get the technique right.

Sometimes in the 400 hdls I think they could go up to the 100 hdls height.

And womens steeplechase barrier height - the height of my average jogging stride would prob clear it!

Certainly they are low relative to the height of the men's hurdles

running review wrote:

...would you agree with her opinion that if the hurdles were made higher the event would be dominated by tall women only?

No, I wouldn't. Not completely anyway.

If the hurdles were higher, the step over the hurdles would be longer. That means the three steps between hurdles would be shorter. (Duh.)

But the steps between hurdles--at elite speeds, anyway--are already pretty restricted for the taller hurdlers. Raising the height of the hurdles would just make those three-steps-between that much more cramped for the taller woman. So it's not like the taller athletes would have this huge advantage if the hurdles went up to 36".

I do agree that the women's barriers in the steeplechase could profitably be higher, but that may stem from personal experience: in the early days of women's SC, when they just used the men's-height barriers, I coached a distancewoman who wasn't much over five feet tall. But we noticed that when she was fooling around with the women's 400m hurdles, she always cleared the hurdles by several inches; *lightbulb* "Why not see what she can do with the steeple barriers?" And a two-time conference SC champ was born.

The thing about the women's current (30in) steeple barriers is that the water jump's barrier is so low--yet the dimensions for the water itself don't change--so it's very difficult for a woman to one-foot the water landing, without making a really huge push off the barrier. I realize that some manage, but it does change the event a bit.

Anyway, on average male steeplers are maybe a bit under six feet tall--so not quite twice the height of their hurdles. The average female in the event is maybe around 5 1/2 feet tall, so for their barriers to present the same kind of challenge that men face, they should certainly be at least 33"--the height of the women's current "high" hurdles--and certainly not all the way down at 30". The SC doesn't put much of a premium on hurdling technique anyway, but at least it should present *some* hurdling difficulty for women...

Watching the races I think they are too low for the women. Typical sexist thinking that prevented an Olympic Marathon for the women until 1984.

would leave it alone at the high school level but I think going to 36in highs and 33in for the 400's at the collegiate and open levels would make for much more exciting races...very few hurdles ever get knocked over in the women's races because they are so low.

While we are at it why is there no women's decathlon? You think someone would have done something about that. Are women too weak for ten events?

The dimensions of the soccer pitch and the goals for women are the same as they are for men. The dimensions of the tennis court and the height of the net are the same for the women as they are for the men ...etc etc.

The women's hurdles heights and steeple-chase barrier heights at present are simply far too low; they should be the same height as they are for the men. Both sexes run around the same sized track after all.

Canova>God wrote:

While we are at it why is there no women's decathlon? You think someone would have done something about that. Are women too weak for ten events?

Yeah I was wondering this too. It seems like changing would be too much trouble now that everyone is used to the hep.

I think it's this - probably the same for all the other sports mentioned (football etc.). Laziness to try and codify a whole new rule set for women when there was so little participation (mainly due to society itself) back in the day. Distances should not need to change though really, unless energy systems are affected so differently as to make the event change. Hurdles are quite unique in fitting the event to the idiosyncracies of the sexes. I looked at this a while ago, and it seemed to me that the hurdle heights were, on average, the distance between men's average and women's average heights, different. I can only assume this is why it's also 110m vs 100m? I don't know about the 400m hurdles, but the women's ones do look quite low on the TV coverage, when compared with men's, from memory.

Why do many meets and invitationals have women's steeple and the 3000m flat while also running the 5000m?

I do know a heptathlete who's said that if the vault was part of the hep or if women had to do the dec, that she wouldn't be a multi anymore. Scared of heights or something, maybe.

Yes, they are too low in all events and not proportional to the difference in height between male/female

If we are talking about equality(and we always are), they should be the same height for both genders.