World Athletics Championships 1987/400 m hurdles for women

2. World Athletics Championships
discipline	400 meter hurdles
gender	Women
Attendees	35 athletes from 29 countries
venue	Rome
Competition location	Olympic Stadium
Competition phase	August 31st (preliminary) September 1st (semifinals) September 3rd (final)
Medalists Sabine Busch ( GDR )   Debbie Flintoff-King ( AUS )   Inge Exner ( GDR )

The Olympic Stadium in Rome in 2009

The women's 400-meter hurdles at the World Athletics Championships in 1987 was held from August 31 to September 3, 1987 in the Olympic Stadium in the Italian capital, Rome .

The runners from the GDR secured two gold and bronze medals in this competition. World champion was the vice European champion from 1986 Sabine Busch , who was also reigning world champion and two-time European champion ( 1982/1986 ) with the 4 x 400 meter relay of her country and was again world champion here three days later. Second place went to the Australian Debbie Flintoff-King . Bronze went to Cornelia Ullrich , former Cornelia Feuerbach.

Records

Existing records

World record	52.94 s	Marina Ivanovna Stepanova	Tashkent , Soviet Union (now Uzbekistan )	17th September 1986
World championship record	54.14 s	Ekaterina Alexejewna Fessenko	1983 World Cup in Helsinki , Finland	August 10, 1983

Record improvement

World champion Sabine Busch from the GDR improved the world championship record in the final on September 3rd by 52 hundredths of a second to 53.62 seconds.

Preliminary round

August 31, 1987

The preliminary round was carried out in five runs. The first two athletes per run - highlighted in light blue - and the six fastest runners - highlighted in light green - qualified for the semi-finals.

Forward 1

Nawal El Moutawakel (here in 2015) , 1984 Olympic champion, missed the semifinals by one place

space	Surname	nation	time
1	Sabine Busch	GDR	55.51 s
2	Ana Ambrazienė	Soviet Union	56.50 s
3	Nawal El Moutawakel	Morocco	57.21 s
4th	Jenny Laurendet	Australia	57.41 s
5	Barbara Johnson	Ireland	58.72 s
6th	Tania Fernández	Cuba	58.78 s
7th	Mariam Zewde	Ethiopia	1: 00.57 min

Forward 2

space	Surname	nation	time
1	LaTanya Sheffield	United States	55.93 s
2	Debbie Flintoff-King	Australia	56.31 s
3	Christina Wennberg	Sweden	56.91 s
4th	Irmgard Trojer	Italy	57.09 s
5	Hélène Huart	France	57.13 s
6th	Maria João Lopes	Portugal	58.86 s
7th	Semra Aksu	Turkey	59.13 s

Forward 3

space	Surname	nation	time
1	Judi Brown-King	United States	55.45 s
2	Tuija Helander-Kuusisto	Finland	55.42 s
3	Pilavullakandi Thekkeparambil Usha	India	55.73 s
4th	Maria Usifo	Nigeria	56.13 s
5	Helga Halldorsdóttír	Iceland	57.82 s
6th	Marie Womplou	Ivory Coast	58.46 s
7th	Gerda Haas	Austria	58.65 s

Forward 4

space	Surname	nation	time
1	Margarita Kromova	Soviet Union	55.21 s
2	Schowonda Williams	United States	55.53 s
3	Gudrun Abbot	BR Germany	55.82 s
4th	Liliana Chalá	Ecuador	58.39 s
5	Gwen Wall	Canada	58.66 s
6th	Maria Fialho	Brazil	58.93 s
DSQ	Genowefa Błaszak	Poland

Forward 5

space	Surname	nation	time
1	Cornelia Ullrich	GDR	56.75 s
2	Sandra Farmer	Jamaica	56.76 s
3	Rose Tata-Muya	Kenya	57.11 s
4th	Cristina Perez	Spain	57.23 s
5	Erika Szopori	Hungary	58.09 s
6th	Sally Fleming	Australia	58.87 s
DSQ	Fatima Podium	Burkina Faso

Semifinals

September 1, 1987

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

Semi-final run 1

space	Surname	nation	Time (s)
1	Sabine Busch	GDR	54.41
2	Sandra Farmer	Jamaica	54.68
3	Tuija Helander-Kuusisto	Finland	54.76
4th	Schowonda Williams	United States	54.82
5	Margarita Kromova	Soviet Union	54.86
6th	LaTanya Sheffield	United States	56.65
7th	Rose Tata-Muya	Kenya	57.65
DNS	Maria Usifo	Nigeria

Pilavullakandi Thekkeparambil (PT) Usha was eliminated with her sixth place in the second semifinals

Semi-final run 2

space	Surname	nation	Time (s)
1	Cornelia Ullrich	GDR	54.72
2	Debbie Flintoff-King	Australia	55.08
3	Ana Ambrazienė	Soviet Union	55.47
4th	Judi Brown-King	United States	55.55
5	Gudrun Abbot	BR Germany	55.59
6th	Pilavullakandi Thekkeparambil Usha	India	55.89
7th	Christina Wennberg	Sweden	56.56
8th	Irmgard Trojer	Italy	57.86

final

3rd September 1987

space	Surname	nation	Time (s)
1	Sabine Busch	GDR	53.62 CR
2	Debbie Flintoff-King	Australia	54.19
3	Cornelia Ullrich	GDR	54.31
4th	Sandra Farmer	Jamaica	54.38
5	Tuija Helander-Kuusisto	Finland	54.62
6th	Ana Ambrazienė	Soviet Union	55.68
7th	Schowonda Williams	United States	55.86
8th	Judi Brown-King	United States	56.10

• 

  World Champion Sabine Busch, 1986 Vice European Champion, won gold again three days later with her country's 4 x 400 meter relay

• 

  Cornelia Ullrich (right) , former Cornelia Feuerbach, won the bronze medal

Web links

• IAAF World Championships in Athletics, 2nd IAAF World Championships in Athletics , accessed April 4, 2020
• Women 400m Hurdles Athletics II World Championship Rome (ITA) 1987 at todor66.com, accessed April 4, 2020
• Results in the IAAF Statistics Handbook for the 2019 World Cup in Doha, Women 100 m, Rome 1987 (PDF 10.3 MB, p. 305), English, accessed on April 4, 2020

Video

• Video of the final on youtube.com, accessed April 4, 2020
• Video of the first run on youtube.com, accessed on April 4, 2020

References and comments

1. ↑ IAAF world records. 400 m hurdles women on rekorde-im-sport.de, accessed on April 4, 2020