On July 11th there were 11 heats. The two best runners in each round reached the semi-finals, which were held on the same day. In these six semi-finals only the respective winner could qualify for the final on July 12th.
What the organizers thought with this form of processing is no longer comprehensible today. The individual preliminary runs were completely different in terms of the number of participants. Two races were held with three athletes, in all remaining runs there were only two athletes at the start, who of course only had to cross the finish line in order to advance. A preliminary run was even carried out with just a single hurdle sprinter. Of the 22 athletes who competed, only two were eliminated, although there would have been room for them in one of the later semi-finals.
Note: The runners who qualify for the next round are highlighted in light blue.
Preliminary round
Géo André (FRA)
Ferdinand Bie (NOR)
Kenneth Powell (GBR) was also known as a tennis player.
Scene from the finale, in the background you can see Nicholson's fall.
Date: July 12, 1912
The final was contested by five Americans and one British.
John Nicholson and James Wendell led until halfway through the race, when Nicholson fell on the eighth hurdle. Fred Kelly passed Wendell and won the gold medal. As can be seen from the times, the distances between the runners at the finish were small. The level was high overall, Forrest Smithson's world record was only missed by a tenth of a second.
It was the fourth triple success of US athletes in the discipline and the fifth Olympic victory by a US athlete in the fifth Olympic race. Of the 14 medals so far - there were only two starters in 1896 - 13 were won by runners from the USA.