European Athletics Championships 1971/100 m hurdles for women

10th European Athletics Championships
discipline	100-meter hurdles for women
city	Helsinki
Stadion	Olympic Stadium
Participants	17 athletes from 13 countries
Competition phase	August 12th (preliminary / semi-finals) August 13th (final)
Medalists
gold	Karin Balzer ( GDR )
silver	Annelie Ehrhardt ( GDR )
bronze	Teresa Sukniewicz ( POL )

The Olympic Stadium of Helsinki in 2005

The 100-meter hurdles for women in the 1971 European Athletics Championships was on 12 and 13 August 1971 at the Olympic Stadium of Helsinki held.

It was won by the European champion of 1966 and 1969 and Olympic champion of 1964 over 80 meter hurdles Karin Balzer , who also holds the world record over 100 meter hurdles. Second place went to Annelie Ehrhardt , née Annelie Jahns. Bronze went to Teresa Sukniewicz from Poland .

Records

Preliminary remark:
In these years there was a dichotomy in terms of best performances and records. Hand-stopped and electronically determined services were performed side by side. The official times were usually given in tenths of a second, which were rounded if electronic measurements were available. Due to the elimination of the reaction time of the timekeeper with electronic timekeeping, the discussion was about introducing a so-called pre-set value in order not to automatically improve the hand-stopped performance. But the correct specification of these times remained, which were later also officially listed with hundredths of a second after the decimal point.

Official records - given in tenths of a second

Existing records

World record	12.6 s	Karin Balzer	East Berlin (now Berlin ), GDR (now Germany )	July 31, 1971
European record
EM record	13.3 s		EM Athens , Greece	20th September 1969

Record settings / improvements

The existing EM record was set twice at these European championships and improved three times:

• Record settings:
  • 13.3 s - Karin Balzer , 2nd lead on August 12th 
  • 13.3 s - Annelie Ehrhardt , 3rd lead on August 12th 
• Record Improvements:
  • 13.2 s - Karin Balzer , 1st semi-final on August 12th 
  • 13.1 s - Annelie Ehrhardt , 2nd semi-final on August 12th 
  • 12.9 s - Karin Balzer , final on August 13th 

Electronically measured records

Existing records

World record	13.29 s	Karin Balzer	EM Athens , Greece	20th September 1969
European record
EM record

Record setting / improvements

The existing EM record was set once at these European championships and improved three times:

• Record setting:
  • 13.29 s - Annelie Ehrhardt , 3rd lead on August 12th 
• Record Improvements:
  • 13.20 s - Karin Balzer , 1st semi-final on August 12th 
  • 13.11 s - Annelie Ehrhardt , 2nd semi-final on August 12th 
  • 12.94 s - Karin Balzer , final on August 13th 

Preliminary round

August 12, 1971, 12:30 p.m.

The preliminary round was carried out in three runs. The first five athletes per run - highlighted in light blue - as well as the fastest female runner - highlighted in light green - qualified for the semi-finals.

It is difficult to understand how it was possible to set up preliminary runs. Only seventeen hurdlers were at the start, of which the eight best - the first two of a run plus two fastest ones - could have made it directly to the final over three preliminary heats. Instead, a single participant was eliminated from the scheduled races. In the second run, the athletes only had to reach the goal to get to the next round. So the remaining sixteen athletes made it to the semi-finals.

Forward 1

Wind: ± 0.0 m / s

space	Surname	nation	Official time (s) rounded to the nearest tenth	Unofficial time (s) exact value
1	Valeria Bufanu	Romania	13.5	13.46
2	Teresa Nowak	Poland	13.6	13.56
3	Gun Olsson	Sweden	14.0	14.04
4th	Sirkka Norrlund	Finland	14.1	14.05
5	Jeanne Schoebel	France	14.3	14.30
6th	Sheila Garnett	Great Britain	15.2	15.15

Forward 2

Wind: ± 0.0 m / s

space	Surname	nation	Official time (s) rounded to the nearest tenth	Unofficial time (s) exact value
1	Karin Balzer	GDR	13.3 CRe	13.30
2	Danuta Straszyńska	Poland	13.5	13.50
3	Margit Bach	BR Germany	13.6	13.62
4th	Ileana Ongar	Italy	14.5	14.51
5	Ingunn Einarsdóttir	Iceland	15.9	15.92

Forward 3

Wind: ± 0.0 m / s

space	Surname	nation	Official time (s) rounded to the nearest tenth	Unofficial time (s) exact value
1	Annelie Ehrhardt	GDR	13.3 CRe	13.29 CRel e
2	Teresa Sukniewicz	Poland	13.4	13.38
3	Tatiana Poluboyarova	Soviet Union	13.5	13.53
4th	Meta antennas	Switzerland	13.5	13.54
5	Jacqueline André	France	14.4	14.44
6th	Margaret Murphy	Ireland	15.1	15.09

Semifinals

August 12, 1971, 6:50 p.m.

In each of the two semi-finals, the first four athletes - highlighted in light blue - qualified for the final.

Run 1

Wind: -0.8 m / s

space	Surname	nation	Official time (s) rounded to the nearest tenth	Unofficial time (s) exact value
1	Karin Balzer	GDR	13.2 CR	13.20 CR
2	Valeria Bufanu	Romania	13.3	13.31
3	Teresa Nowak	Poland	13.5	13.46
4th	Meta antennas	Switzerland	13.5	13.47
5	Margit Bach	BR Germany	13.8	13.78
6th	Jacqueline André	France	14.1	14.05
7th	Sirkka Norrlund	Finland	15.6	15.55
DNS	Ingunn Einarsdóttir	Iceland

Jeanne Schoebel (left) was eliminated in the semifinals in sixth place in her race

Run 2

Wind: +0.2 m / s

space	Surname	nation	Official time (s) rounded to the nearest tenth	Unofficial time (s) exact value
1	Annelie Ehrhardt	GDR	13.1 CR	13.11 CR
2	Danuta Straszyńska	Poland	13.4	13.39
3	Teresa Sukniewicz	Poland	13.4	13.40
4th	Tatiana Poluboyarova	Soviet Union	13.6	13.56
5	Gun Olsson	Sweden	13.8	13.80
6th	Jeanne Schoebel	France	14.1	14.11
7th	Ileana Ongar	Italy	14.5	14.45
8th	Margaret Murphy	Ireland	15.2	15.20

final

The world record holder Karin Balzer won her third European Championship title over the short hurdle distance, and she was also an Olympic champion in 1964 , then over 80 meter hurdles

August 13, 1971, 6:00 p.m.

Wind: ± 0.0 m / s

space	Surname	nation	Official time (s) rounded to the nearest tenth	Unofficial time (s) exact value
1	Karin Balzer	GDR	12.9 CR	12.94 CR
2	Annelie Ehrhardt	GDR	13.0	12.96
3	Teresa Sukniewicz	Poland	13.2	13.21
4th	Danuta Straszyńska	Poland	13.3	13.34
5	Meta antennas	Switzerland	13.4	13.35
6th	Teresa Nowak	Poland	13.5	13.46
7th	Valeria Bufanu	Romania	13.5	13.47
8th	Tatiana Poluboyarova	Soviet Union	13.7	13.69

• 

  Vice European champion Annelie Ehrhardt rose to become a serious rival for the dominant Karin Balzer and soon afterwards replaced her as the world's best hurdle sprinter - among other things as Olympic champion in  1972

• 

  Danuta Straszyńska came fourth

Web links

• European Championship 1971 Helsinki, Women 100m Hurdles on todor66.com, accessed July 2, 2019
• Track and Field Statistics, EM 1971 on trackfield.brinkster.net, accessed July 2, 2019
• European Athletics Championships Zurich 2014 - Statistics Handbook , Women 100m Hurdles European Championship 1971 Helsinki, p. 418, Spanish / English (PDF, 13,363 kB) at european-athletics.org, accessed on July 2, 2019
• Results of all European Athletics Championships - 1971, 100 m hurdles women on sportschau.de, accessed on July 2, 2019
• 10th European Athletics Championships 1971 in Helsinki, Finland from ifosta.de, accessed on July 2, 2019

References and comments

1. ↑ IAAF world records. 400m women , accessed July 3, 2019
2. ↑ Progression of the European Outdoor Records, 100 m Hurdles Women , p. 55 (PDF, 271 kB), Spanish / English, accessed on July 3, 2019