The 400 metres hurdles is a track and field hurdling event. The event has been on the Olympic athletics programme since 1900 for men and since 1984 for women.
The women's 400 metres hurdles at the 2004 Summer Olympics as part of the athletics program were held at the Athens Olympic Stadium from August 21 to 25.
Natalya Nikolayevna Antyukh is a Russian sprinter who specializes in the 400 metres and 400 metres hurdles. She won the bronze medal in the 400 metres and a silver for the 4 × 400 m relay at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens.
The 100 metres hurdles, or 100-meter hurdles, is a track and field event run mainly by women. For the race, ten hurdles of a height of 33 inches (83.8 cm) are placed along a straight course of 100 metres (109.36 yd). The first hurdle is placed after a run-up of 13 metres from the starting line. The next 9 hurdles are set at a distance of 8.5 metres from each other, and the home stretch from the last hurdle to the finish line is 10.5 metres long. The hurdles are set up so that they will fall over if bumped into by the runner, but weighted so this is disadvantageous. Fallen hurdles do not count against runners provided that they do not run into them on purpose. Like the 100 metres sprint, the 100 m hurdles begins with athletes in starting blocks.
Zuzana Hejnová is a retired Czech athlete who specialised in the 400 metres hurdles. She won the silver medal in the event at the 2012 London Olympics. Hejnová is a two-time World Champion, having claimed titles at the 2013 and 2015 World Championships in Athletics. She won bronze at the 2012 European Championships and silver for the 400 metres at the 2017 European Indoor Championships.
Queen Quedith Claye née Harrison is an American hurdler and sprinter who competed in the 400 metres hurdles at the 2008 Summer Olympics. She was a six-time collegiate All-American at Virginia Tech where she was elected to its sports hall of fame. Queen is a meet director for Virginia's Best Track and Field Classic - VHSL meet hosted in Richmond, Virginia started in 2017.
Eilidh Doyle is a retired British track and field athlete. Originally running as Eilidh Child, she specialised in the 400 metres hurdles outdoors, and the 400 metres flat indoors, as well as the 4 x 400 metres relay on both surfaces. She represented Great Britain at the 2012 Olympic Games in London, and won an Olympic bronze medal in the 4 x 400 metres relay at the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro. Individually, she is the 2014 European Champion and a three-time Commonwealth silver medalist in the 400 metres hurdles.
Lauren Boden is an Australian athletics competitor. Her events are the 400 metre hurdles, 400 metres and long jump. She was the youngest woman to win the 400 metres hurdle event at the Australian national championships. She has competed in the long jump event and the 400 metres hurdle event at the World University Games. She has competed at the 2006 and 2010 Commonwealth Games and the 2012 and 2016 Summer Olympics in the 400 metre hurdles event.
Cindy Roleder is a German track and field athlete, specializing in 100 metres hurdles. She won the silver medal at the 2015 World Championships in Athletics. Roleder claimed three medals at the European Athletics Championships, becoming the first German winner of the European 100 m hurdles title since reunification in 2016. She also won the 60 m hurdles title at the 2017 European Indoor Championships.
Léa Sprunger is a former Swiss track and field athlete. Originally a heptathlete like her older sister Ellen, she began concentrating on the 200 metres and 400 metres in 2011, and then on the 400 metres hurdles from 2015. Her best times in the 400m and 400m hurdles of 50.52 s (2018) and 54.06 s (2019) are the Swiss records. She finished fifth in the 400m hurdles final at the 2017 World Championships, and went on to win the gold medal in the 400m hurdles at the 2018 European Championships.
Sayaka Aoki is a Japanese track and field sprinter and hurdler, who specializes in the 400 metres sprint and 400 metres hurdles. She competed for her country as part of the Japanese women's 4 × 400 metres relay team at the Summer Olympics in 2008 and the World Championships in Athletics three times. She has been a four-time medallist in the relay at the Asian Athletics Championships, including a gold medal in 2011. She won her first major international medal in the hurdles – a bronze – at the 2017 Asian Athletics Championships.
Dalilah Muhammad is an American track and field athlete who specializes in the 400 meters hurdles. She is the 2016 Rio Olympics champion and 2020 Tokyo Olympics silver medalist, becoming at the latter the then-second-fastest woman of all time in the event with her personal best of 51.58 seconds. Muhammad was second at both the 2013 and 2017 World Championships to take her first gold in 2019, setting the former world record of 52.16 s. She was the second female 400 m hurdler in history, after Sally Gunnell, to have won the Olympic, World titles and broken the world record. At both the 2019 World Championships and Tokyo Games, she also took gold as part of women's 4 × 400 metres relay team.
Wenda Nel is a South African athlete specialising in the 400 metres hurdles. She competed at the 2011 World Championships reaching the semifinals.
Oluwakemi "Kemi" Adekoya is a Nigerian-born track and field athlete who competes for Bahrain. She specialises in the 400 metres hurdles and has a personal best of 53.39 seconds – a Bahraini and Asian record. In January 2019, it was reported that Adekoya tested positive for an illegal steroid stanozolol in an out-of-competition test in November 2018 and was provisionally suspended. All of her results achieved after 24 August 2018 were also stripped.
Oluwatobiloba Ayomide "Tobi" Amusan is a Nigerian track and field athlete who specialises in the 100 metres hurdles and also competes as a sprinter. Amusan is the current world record holder in the 100 metres hurdles with a time of 12.12 seconds which she set at the 2022 women's 100 metres hurdles semi final in Eugene Oregon. She is the current Commonwealth and African champion in the 100 m hurdles, as well as the meet record holder in those two competitions. Amusan became the first ever Nigerian world champion and world record holder in an athletics event when she won the 2022 World Championships 100 m hurdles gold medal, setting the current world record of 12.12 seconds (+0.9m/s) in the semi-final, followed up by a 12.06 seconds (+2.5m/s) in the final. She won back-to-back Commonwealth and African titles in 2018 and 2022 in the 100 m hurdles and is also a two-time African Games champion in the event. She is also the current Diamond league champion in the 100 metres hurdles having won the final in 12.33 seconds (+1.8m/s) achieving a winning streak in 2021, 2022 and 2023.
Sydney Michelle McLaughlin-Levrone is an American hurdler and sprinter who competes in the 400 meters hurdles. She is the 2020 Tokyo Olympic champion with the Games record, and 2022 World champion with a world record time of 50.68 seconds. Setting four world records during 13 months, she was the first woman to break the 52-second and 51-second barriers in the 400 m hurdles. She won the silver medal at the 2019 World Championships. At all three competitions, she also took gold as part of a women's 4 × 400 m relay team.
Yinka Ajayi is a Nigerian sprinter specialising in the 400 metres. She was the bronze medallist at the 2018 African Championships in Asaba. Individually, she also won a bronze medal at the 2017 Islamic Solidarity Games, in addition to several relay medals. Sister to Miami Dolphins Running Back; Jay Ajayi.
Praise Oghenefejiro Idamadudu is a Nigeria female track and field sprinter who competes in the 200 metres and the 400 metres. She was a silver medallist in the 4 × 400 metres relay at the 2018 Commonwealth Games.
The women's 400 metres hurdles event at the 2018 African Championships in Athletics was held on 4 and 5 August in Asaba, Nigeria.
Femke Bol is a Dutch track and field athlete who competes in hurdling and sprinting. She specialises in the 400 metres hurdles, where she is the 2023 World Champion, and in the 400 metres, where she is the 2024 World Indoor Champion and the short track world record holder. In the 4 × 400 metres relay, she is the 2023 World Champion and the 2024 World Indoor Champion with the Dutch women's team.
