HURDLING

sport in track-and-field athletics in which a runner races over a series of obstacles called hurdles, which are set a fixed distance apart. Runners must remain in assigned lanes throughout a race, and, although they may knock hurdles down while running over them, a runner who trails a foot or leg alongside a hurdle or knocks it down with a hand is disqualified. The first hurdler to complete the course is the winner. Hurdling probably originated in England in the early 19th century, where such races were held at Eton College about 1837. In those days hurdlers merely ran at and jumped over each hurdle in turn, landing on both feet and checking their forward motion. Experimentation with numbers of steps between hurdles led to a conventional step pattern for hurdlers3 steps between each high hurdle, 7 between each low hurdle, and usually 15 between each intermediate hurdle. Further refinements were made by A.C.M. Croome of Oxford University about 1885, when he went over the hurdle with one leg extended straight ahead at the same time giving a forward lunge of the trunk, the basis of modern hurdling technique. A major improvement in hurdle design was the invention in 1935 of the L-shaped hurdle, replacing the heavier, inverted-T design. In the L-shaped design and its refinement, the curved-L, or rocker hurdle, the base-leg of the L points toward the approaching hurdler. When upset, the hurdle tips down, out of the athlete's path, instead of tipping up and over as did the inverted-T design. Modern hurdlers use a sprinting style between hurdles and a double-arm forward thrust and exaggerated forward lean while clearing the hurdle. They then bring the trailing leg through at nearly a right angle to the body, which enables them to continue forward without breaking stride after clearing the hurdle. Under rules of the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF), the world governing body of track-and-field athletics, the standard hurdling distances for men are 110, 200, and 400 metres (120, 220, and 440 yards, respectively). Men's Olympic distances are 110 metres and 400 metres; the 200-metre race was held only at the 1900 and 1904 Games. The 110-metre race includes 10 high hurdles (1.067 metres [42 inches] high), spaced 9.14 metres (10 yards) apart. The 400-metre race is over 10 intermediate hurdles (91.4 cm high) spaced 35 metres apart. The 200-metre race, run occasionally, has 10 low hurdles (76.3 cm high) spaced 18.29 metres apart. Distances and specifications vary somewhat for indoor and scholastic events. The women's international distance formerly was 80 metres over 8 76.3-cm hurdles. In 1966 the IAAF approved two new hurdle races for women: 100 metres over 10 84-cm hurdles, to replace the 80-metre event in the 1972 Olympics; and 200 metres (supplanted in 1976 by 400 metre) over 10 76.2-cm hurdles. Babe Didrikson (right) winning the 80-metre hurdles at the 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. AP/Wide World hurdy-gurdy squat, pear-shaped fiddle having strings that are sounded not by a bow but by the rosined rim of a wooden wheel turned by a handle at the instrument's end. Notes are made on the one or two melody strings by stopping them with short wooden keys pressed by the left-hand fingers. Up to four unstopped strings, called bourdons, sound drones. The hurdy-gurdy was first mentioned in the 10th century as the organistrum. It was then a church instrument played by two men, one fingering the keys, one turning the wheel. Secular, one-man forms, called symphonia, appeared in the 13th century. It was fashionable during the reign of Louis XIV as the vielle roue (wheel fiddle) and was played into the 20th century by folk and street musicians, notably in France and eastern Europe. The Swedish nyckelharpa is a similar fiddle with keys, but it is played with a bow. Joseph Haydn composed a group of concerti and nocturnes for the lira organizatta, a variety of hurdy-gurdy having several small organ pipes attached to it. The name hurdy-gurdy sometimes mistakenly refers to other handle-operated street instruments, such as the barrel organ and barrel piano.