Does Warholm’s 45.94 400m Hurdles record prove that the Van Niekerk’s 43.03 400m record is soft?

The most efficient hurdlers can run 1.5 secs off their pr, and good hurdlers can be 2 secs off their pr breaking a wr by .8 secs proves it maybe soft.

45.5 is still softer than 43.03

Hard to call it weak when it has barely been approached.

jumpers knee wrote:

The most efficient hurdlers can run 1.5 secs off their pr, and good hurdlers can be 2 secs off their pr breaking a wr by .8 secs proves it maybe soft.

45.5 is still softer than 43.03

lets take a look

warholm

400m/400mh

44.87 (from 2017)/45.94 = 1.07 difference

rai

400m/400mh

44.31 (from 2019)/46.17 = 1.86 difference

young

400m/400mh

45.11/46.78 = 1.67 difference

but we know that warholm hit 33.26 300mh, at that even pace gives him a 44.34 for 400mh if he could maintain

we know rai has 19.99 speed and warholm is prob just as fast, and has a 43.7 relay split again warholm must be just ast fast

so lets look at the difference again

warholm

43.7/45.94 = 2.24

rai

43.7/46.17 = 3.47

if we go with the 1.5 difference then the hurdles is indeed still soft and could be

43.7/45.2

unless he ran lead leg, that 43.7 is really a 44.3-5.

makes perfect sense now. right?

twice a runner wrote:

Less than three seconds to cover all the hurdles in comparison to WVN’s 400m open record makes the 400m appear soft in comparison.

The 400 meter world record is not soft by any measure you could dream up. To put this in perspective, if you use the average of when Warholm hit the beginning and end of the exchange zones, his 200 meter split was around 20.4 and his 300 meter split was around 31.8. This was simply a disgusting display of mastery of this event. It is very likely that this is the greatest world record set in track and field. If other world records seem soft, it is only because of the sheer ridiculousness of how fast this was.

If we look at the World Athletics scoring tables, the 45.94 by Karsten now scores 1341 points vs Wayde’s 43.03 with 1321 points which by that measure makes the hurdles record stronger.

By comparison in the sprints Usain’s 9.58 in the 100m scores 1355 points making that an even stronger record. Followed closely by the 200m record of 19.19 with 1350 points. The only higher scoring event is the Javelin with 1356.

how can 43.03 be soft when 400 flat is the event literally every runner does?

Even if you end up a marathoner, if you have any speed at all you're gonna run some 400s in high school at least. More depth than any other event.

It's 400 hurdles that lacks depth, often starting with whoever isn't good enough for the flats. These guys are good enough for the flats but chose hurdles anyway. And you see WR's obliterated by nearly a second, there's no question where the softness was.

Placebo wrote:

If we look at the World Athletics scoring tables, the 45.94 by Karsten now scores 1341 points vs Wayde’s 43.03 with 1321 points which by that measure makes the hurdles record stronger.

By comparison in the sprints Usain’s 9.58 in the 100m scores 1355 points making that an even stronger record. Followed closely by the 200m record of 19.19 with 1350 points. The only higher scoring event is the Javelin with 1356.

It seems the top scoring records are Bolt's 100 and 200, the 400H and the javelin. What the record was happening in the javelin? How far ahead of second is the record?

Bad Wigins wrote:

how can 43.03 be soft when 400 flat is the event literally every runner does?

Even if you end up a marathoner, if you have any speed at all you're gonna run some 400s in high school at least. More depth than any other event.

It's 400 hurdles that lacks depth, often starting with whoever isn't good enough for the flats. These guys are good enough for the flats but chose hurdles anyway. And you see WR's obliterated by nearly a second, there's no question where the softness was.

I do not disagree with you that most T&F athletes race or have raced 400m but the path to 400mH athlete usually is from 100m hurdles for females or from 110m hurdles for males. Most 400m athletes who leave the event either quit T&F or usually race 200m or 800m. Just like most less than successful 100 yard freestyle swimmers or less than successful 100m swimmers do not chose to swim 100 yard or 100m butterfly.

JumpsDoctor wrote:

twice a runner wrote:

Less than three seconds to cover all the hurdles in comparison to WVN’s 400m open record makes the 400m appear soft in comparison.

The 400 meter world record is not soft by any measure you could dream up. To put this in perspective, if you use the average of when Warholm hit the beginning and end of the exchange zones, his 200 meter split was around 20.4 and his 300 meter split was around 31.8. This was simply a disgusting display of mastery of this event. It is very likely that this is the greatest world record set in track and field. If other world records seem soft, it is only because of the sheer ridiculousness of how fast this was.

Disclaimer, since I posted this everywhere because of how excited I was, I messed up and used the wrong lines to determine the edge of the exchange zone, so my splits are wrong. Sorry, Letsrun! He's still super fast!

No it does not prove anything like that. It shows that the 400m hurdles is a very tough event with a smaller talent pool that the other sprints. Edwin Moses ran 47.13 in 1980 and 47.02 in '83. So Young's WR stood for 29 years but the improvement in 41 years has only been 1.19 secs. Although it is stunning that 0.76 of this improvement took place yesterday...

But the 400m record has even been more stable. 0.83 secs. since 1968, so we are apparently even closer to the limits here than in the hurdles (all of this despite blatant doping that took place in some of these decades).

Compare this to 100/200m.; the records were improved more and we have far more strong times because it is a far larger talent pool.

Van Niekerk's slow recovery and performance here may prove lack of doping. He just didnt have the gas. On the other hand, the way he broke the WR in Rio, at that age, it was very likely that he would smash 42....so, is it currently 'softer'? You could say the 400H today looked even easier , with the second in way under old record and a bunch of guys witrh PB, no one with a bad race. It can and should go a lot lower

beatable, one day in the not too distant future, yes.

"soft", well, hardly.

400 record worth sub 43 in super spikes.

Look at Aldrich Bailey and how quickly he picked up 400h. Hurdles should only slow you down 1.5-3 seconds. For comparison look at 110h vs 100m. Those hurdles are much higher and with spacing that makes it hard to really drive your speed

A lot of this is assuming that the hurdlers have reached their max potential at the flat. Warholm can sureley improve his flat PB a lot.

When Warholm ran 46.70 in Stockholm he ran the flat not long after the same evening in 45.05.

Sorry, meant 46.87 in Stockholm....

I am Sam wrote:

Van Niekerk's slow recovery and performance here may prove lack of doping. He just didnt have the gas. On the other hand, the way he broke the WR in Rio, at that age, it was very likely that he would smash 42....so, is it currently 'softer'? You could say the 400H today looked even easier , with the second in way under old record and a bunch of guys witrh PB, no one with a bad race. It can and should go a lot lower

Van Niekerk's record run reminds me of Rudisha. I feel both 400m and 800m men's record are very much as close to the limit as possible and technology may be the way to beat them. Both Rudisha and van Niekerk suffered in the aftermath of their records from pushing themselves to the limit and no one seems likely to break both records at the moment.

Karsten needs to run a flat 400 or an 800 at a Diamond League meet in the next few weeks. The latter would be far more interesting. Surely he could run 1:43