Are there penalties for knocking down hurdles

I can remember one time when I was running in the semi-final round of a conference championship meet in college. But obviously, I was hitting hurdles hard enough and often enough to risk being disqualified.

There really is no incentive to learn efficient hurdling technique and to master proper hurdling mechanics if you can just plow right through the doggone things without any penalties. One could argue that the penalty is built into the race itself: hitting hurdles slows you down; hitting hurdles causes you to lose time. No matter how fast you run hitting hurdles, you always could have run even faster had you not hit any.

A triple jumper, for instance, could scratch by half an inch and jump 54 feet. So what do the officials do? No, they disqualify the attempt. Same thing in long jump, same thing in shot-put, same thing in discus.

One thing I should mention is that the manner in which a hurdler hits hurdles should matter in regards to penalization. When is the last time you saw someone who actually finished a race get disqualified for not making a legitimate effort to negotiate the barriers?

Johnson is, at least, making a legitimate attempt to clear the barrier, and, usually, by the time he hits it, his lead foot is already past the barrier. So what to do in terms of penalties? Hurdles are The National Collegiate Athletic Association requires hurdles to be placed in all lanes but allows racers to run only in alternate lanes.

The set-up limits races to four runners per heat on most tracks. Runners who deliberately knock down a hurdle are disqualified under IAAF rules. Runners who knock over a hurdle accidentally are not disqualified. The National Federation of High Schools had a similar rule until Now, if a runner knocks down a hurdle with her hand she is disqualified, according NFHS rules.

In all levels of competition, runners are required to attempt to clear each hurdle. Spacefem spacefem - 08 - 17 Previous Share Flag Next.

Educational moment, based on conversations overheard in public and in my office today. In a hurdle race, the point is to get to the end of the finish line first. Hitting a hurdle could slow you down or make you fall, so hurdlers try not to hit the hurdles, unless they're big beefy guys who can run through them without being phased. And you do see that. But generally speaking every hurdle you hit takes away a little bit of momentum so you try to skim the top, don't go high over them and waste energy, don't hit them and waste energy.

They are heavy.