The Twelve Stride Jumping Bullet

Decathletes say that 400 in the municipality It is perhaps the most complicated test, because it crushes the legs and the body. Speed ​​and also a lot of power are needed to pass the hurdles (more than 90 centimeters, which appear every 35 meters after 45 clean at the start and 40 at the final) without breaking the rhythm. The greats of history, such as Edwin Moses, have always been high; above 1.80 in height, to complete each section in thirteen strides. In Barcelona Kevin Young (193 centimeters tall), managed to complete several series in twelve strides, the distance between fence and fence (from the sixth to the tenth he did it in thirteen), which allowed him to go under 47 seconds for the first time to set a world record. stratospheric: 46.78. 24 hundredths less than Moses’ best day (47.02 in 1983).

A sidereal time, eleven hundredths better than what he dreamed of when he prepared his race and motivated himself with stickers on the fences. He has not yet been surpassed (he is the oldest of the athletics tests) and he did the last 15 meters raising one arm after having knocked down the last fence. To get an idea, in Rio the gold medal, I’ll tell Clementdid 47.73 (almost a second more than the 1992 mark) although he is the only one who has been able to come close: in 2005 he made a magnificent mark of 47.24.

These years many athletes have tried alternatives to the thirteen steps between hurdles and studies indicate that records of 47.30 or even less can be obtained with a sequence of 13-15 steps between hurdles but it is difficult to go below 47 seconds. Young, who remains involved in athletics at Georgia, believes his record will fall sooner or later. Some hope that Wayde van Niekerk (183 centimeters) and current 400m record holder (he did 43.03 in Rio to beat Michael Johnson) is encouraged to try the hurdles to finish with a record that now seems impossible to beat. The South African, who is trained by a 74-year-old great-grandmother, has speed, although he would need to manage the technique and discipline of the strides.