1904 Summer Olympics / Athletics - 400 m hurdles (men)

sport	athletics
discipline	400 meter hurdles
gender	Men
Attendees	4 athletes from 1 country
Competition location	Francis Field
Competition phase	August 31, 1904
Winning time	53.0 s
Medalist Harry Hillman ( USA )   Frank Waller ( USA )   George Poage ( USA )

The 400-meter hurdles of the men at the Olympic Games 1904 in St. Louis was on August 31, 1904 Francis Field discharged. Only four runners participated, all of them were American.

Olympic champion was Harry Hillman , Frank Waller won the silver medal ahead of George Poage .

Records

The world records that existed at the time were still unofficial.

World record	57.2 s	France	Georges Flilliâtre	1903
		Great Britain	Godfrey Shaw	August 12, 1891
Olympic record	57.6 s	United States	Walter Tewksbury	Paris Finale , July 15, 1900

Crossing the finish line over 400 meter hurdles: Harry Hillman wins ahead of Frank Waller and George Poage

Harry Hillman, three-time gold medalist in the 400 meters and 200 and 400 meter hurdles

Results

The following table shows the results given in four different sources.

space	athlete	country	time indication
			Smart	IOC page	SportsReference	to the Megede
1	Harry Hillman	United States	53.0	53.0	53.0	53.0
2	Frank Waller	United States	53.2	53.2	53.2	53.6 ( estimated )
3	George Poage	United States	58.4	k. A.	30 y behind Pl. 2	k. A.
4th	George Varnell	United States	k. A.

In Europe this competition was one of the established disciplines of athletics, but in the USA there was little experience with this route. As a result, the hurdles were set at the wrong height. Instead of the regular 3 feet (91.4 cm), they were only 2½ feet (76 cm) high here.

Harry Hillman led to the eighth hurdle, but he broke it. So he stumbled and almost fell. Frank Waller was able to catch up, but Hillman prevailed in the final meters with a lead of two yards . The times of the two fastest runners were well below the existing world record . However, there was no recognition for two reasons:

(1) The barriers in St. Louis were too low.

(2) Breaking a hurdle prevented recognition in official leaderboards at that time. A race result, on the other hand, remained valid as long as no more than two hurdles were broken.

literature

• Volker Kluge , Olympic Summer Games - The Chronicle I, Berlin 1997 ( ISBN 3-328-00715-6 )
• Ekkehard zur Megede , The history of Olympic athletics, Volume 1: 1896–1936, Verlag Bartels & Wernitz KG, Berlin, 2nd edition 1970

Web links

• Sports-Reference, Athletics at the 1904 St. Louis Summer Games: Men's 400 meters Hurdles , accessed July 31, 2018
• Olympic Games St. Louis 1904, Athletics, 400m hurdles men , IOC page on athletics at the 1904 Olympic Games from olympic.org, English, accessed July 31, 2018