Gender and event specificity differences in kinematical parameters of a 60 m hurdles race

ABSTRACT

The 60 m hurdles (60 mH) is an indoor track and field event that is also a discipline of the men’s heptathlon (HEPTm) and women’s pentathlon (PENTw) indoor combined events (CBE). The aim of the study was to investigate possible gender, event-specific and hurdle unit differences using time analysis data of elite-level competitors. The athletes competed in men’s (HURm, n = 20) and women’s (HURw, n = 22) 60 mH and the 60 mH discipline of the HEPTm (n = 15) and PENTw (n = 14) during the 2017 European Indoor Athletic Championships were recorded with two high speed panning cameras (sampling frequency: 300 fps). Differences for the time analysis parameters were checked with a 2 (gender) x 2 (event) x 6 (hurdle units) repeated measures ANOVA. Results revealed significant (p <.05) gender, event specific and hurdle unit effects for intermediate times, hurdle clearance duration and average hurdle unit speed. The absence of a significant (p >.05) three-way interaction indicated a common race pattern among the examined groups. In conclusion, CBE athletes’ performance was inferior compared to hurdlers, with distinct differences observed in the duration of the approach run to the first hurdle and the hurdle clearance duration of the last hurdle.

KEYWORDS:

• Track and field
• heptathlon
• pentathlon
• performance
• gender differences
• kinematical analysis
• sport specificity

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the European Athletics Association and the Belgrade 2017 Organizing Committee for their permission and assistance in recording the event.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.