Athletics at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Men's 400 metres hurdles

Men's 400 metres hurdles at the Games of the XXX Olympiad
Venue	Olympic Stadium
Date	3–6 August
Competitors	50 from 34 nations
Winning time	47.63
Medalists
Felix Sanchez   Dominican Republic   Michael Tinsley   United States   Javier Culson   Puerto Rico

Official Video

Athletics at the 2012 Summer Olympics
Track events
100 m		men		women
200 m		men		women
400 m		men		women
800 m		men		women
1500 m		men		women
5000 m		men		women
10,000 m		men		women
100 m hurdles				women
110 m hurdles		men
400 m hurdles		men		women
3000 m steeplechase		men		women
4×100 m relay		men		women
4×400 m relay		men		women
Road events
Marathon		men		women
20 km walk		men		women
50 km walk		men
Field events
Long jump		men		women
Triple jump		men		women
High jump		men		women
Pole vault		men		women
Shot put		men		women
Discus throw		men		women
Javelin throw		men		women
Hammer throw		men		women
Combined events
Heptathlon				women
Decathlon		men

The Men's 400 metres hurdles competition at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, United Kingdom took place on 3–6 August at the Olympic Stadium.^[1]

In the qualifying round, local favorite Dai Greene ran the fastest ever opening round race in the third heat, only to see that mark passed by three athletes in the following heat, led by an eased up Javier Culson. The slowest time qualifier was Kenneth Medwood in 49.78, though Stanislav Melnykov managed to get into the semis automatically with a 50.13 in the slow fifth heat.

With only two automatic qualifiers going to the final from each heat, the first semi-final stacked three former World Champions into one race. Less than a month before his 35th birthday, Félix Sánchez, the 2001 and 2003 World Champion showed he was still in the game, running a season best 47.76. Jehue Gordon upset the form setting the Trinidad and Tobago national record 47.96 in second, leaving 2007 and 2009 World Champion Kerron Clement in 3rd and 2011 World Champion Dai Greene in 4th to hope to qualify on time. The second semi was dominated by world leader Javier Culson and defending champion Angelo Taylor. In the third semi, American trials champion Michael Tinsley and Leford Green separated from the rest of the field. After a nervous wait Clement and Greene made the final on time.

In the final, Taylor, Culson and Sanchez led the way, arriving at the 8th hurdle about even. Taylor took the hurdle awkwardly and started losing ground. While Culson looked to struggle, Sanchez powered away down the stretch for the win, in exactly the same time as his 2004 victory. Tinsley came back from a couple steps back to pass Culson over the last hurdle for the silver, with Greene also trying to make a stretch run to finish fourth.

This was the second ever Olympic medal in Athletics, and the third gold medal overall for the Dominican Republic, the first being Sanchez' in 2004.

In repeating as Olympic champion non-consecutively, Sánchez joined a rare club including Paavo Nurmi, Volodymyr Holubnychy, Heike Drechsler, Nina Romashkova, Edwin Moses (caused by the boycott) and Angelo Taylor. Both Moses and Taylor were in this same event. Ulrike Meyfarth did it remarkably 12 years apart. Ezekiel Kemboi completed such a double the day before and Meseret Defar would complete one four days later.

Competition format

The Men's 400m Hurdles competition consisted of heats (Round 1), Semi-finals and a Final.^[2] The fastest competitors from each race in the heats qualified for the Semi-finals along with the fastest overall competitors not already qualified that were required to fill the available spaces in the Semi-finals.^[3] 24 competitors qualified from the heats for the Semi-finals.

Schedule

All times are British Summer Time (UTC+1)

Records

Prior to the competition, the existing World and Olympic records were as follows.

World record	Kevin Young (USA)	46.78	Barcelona, Spain	6 August 1992
Olympic record
2012 World leading	Javier Culson (PUR)	47.78	Paris, France	6 July 2012
Broken records during the 2012 Summer Olympics
2012 World leading	Félix Sánchez (DOM)	47.63	London, United Kingdom	6 August 2012

The following National records were set during this competition.

Serbia National Record	Emir Bekrić (SRB)	49.21 s
Trinidad and Tobago National Record	Jehue Gordon (TRI)	47.96 s

Results

Round 1

Official Video of First Round

Qual. rule: first 3 of each heat (Q) plus the 6 fastest times (q) qualified.

Heat 1

Rank	Athlete	Nationality	Time	Notes[4]
1	Amaurys Valle	Cuba	49.19	Q, PB
2	Brendan Cole	Australia	49.24	Q, PB
3	Amaechi Morton	Nigeria	49.34	Q
4	Kenneth Medwood	Belize	49.78	q
5	Roxroy Cato	Jamaica	50.22
6	Chen Chieh	Chinese Taipei	50.27
7	Li Zhilong	China	50.36
N/A	Takayuki Kishimoto	Japan	N/A	DQ

Heat 2

Rank	Athlete	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	Michael Tinsley	United States	49.13	Q
2	Leford Green	Jamaica	49.30	Q
3	Kurt Couto	Mozambique	49.31	Q
4	Eric Alejandro	Puerto Rico	49.39	q
5	Rasmus Mägi	Estonia	50.05
6	Winder Cuevas	Dominican Republic	50.15	SB
N/A	Akihiko Nakamura	Japan	N/A	DQ
N/A	Kariem Hussein	Switzerland	N/A	DNS

Heat 3

Rank	Athlete	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	Dai Greene	Great Britain	48.98	Q
2	Emir Bekrić	Serbia	49.21	Q, NR
3	José Reynaldo Bencosme de Leon	Italy	49.35	Q
4	Brent Larue	Slovenia	49.38	q, PB
5	Jamele Mason	Puerto Rico	49.89
6	Cheng Wen	China	50.38
7	Vincent Kiplangat Koskei	Kenya	50.80
8	Cornel Fredericks	South Africa	52.29
N/A	Lankantien Lamboni	Togo	N/A	DQ

Heat 4

Rank	Athlete	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	Javier Culson	Puerto Rico	48.33	Q
2	Kerron Clement	United States	48.48	Q, SB
3	Omar Cisneros	Cuba	48.63	Q, SB
4	Tristan Thomas	Australia	49.13	q, SB
5	Rhys Williams	Great Britain	49.17	q, SB
6	Michael Bultheel	Belgium	49.18	q, PB
7	Viacheslav Sakaev	Russia	50.36
8	Jorge Paula	Portugal	51.40
9	Maoulida Daroueche	Comoros	53.49

Heat 5

Rank	Athlete	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	Angelo Taylor	United States	49.29	Q
2	Jehue Gordon	Trinidad and Tobago	49.37	Q
3	Stanislav Melnykov	Ukraine	50.13	Q
4	Silvio Schirrmeister	Germany	50.21
5	Periklis Iakovakis	Greece	50.27
6	L. J. van Zyl	South Africa	50.31
7	Josef Prorok	Czech Republic	50.33
8	Viktor Leptikov	Kazakhstan	51.67

Heat 6

Rank	Athlete	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	Félix Sánchez	Dominican Republic	49.24	Q
2	Jack Green	Great Britain	49.49	Q
3	Mamadou Kasse Hanne	Senegal	49.63	Q
4	Tetsuya Tateno	Japan	49.95
5	Josef Robertson	Jamaica	49.98
6	Boniface Mucheru	Kenya	50.33
7	Artem Dyatlov	Uzbekistan	51.55
8	Andrés Silva	Uruguay	53.38

Notes: Q- Qualified by place
q - Qualified by performance (time)
PB - Personal Best
NR - National Record
SB - Seasonal Best
DQ - DisQualified
DNS - Did Not Start

Semifinals

Official Video of Semifinal Round

Qual. rule: first 2 of each heat (Q) plus the 2 fastest times (q) qualified.

Heat 1

Rank	Athlete	Nationality	Time	Notes[4]
1	Félix Sánchez	Dominican Republic	47.76	Q, SB
2	Jehue Gordon	Trinidad and Tobago	47.96	Q, NR
3	Kerron Clement	United States	48.12	q, SB
4	Dai Greene	Great Britain	48.19	q
5	Mamadou Kasse Hanne	Senegal	48.80	PB
6	Michael Bultheel	Belgium	49.10	PB
7	Eric Alejandro	Puerto Rico	49.15
8	Kurt Couto	Mozambique	51.55

Heat 2

Rank	Athlete	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	Javier Culson	Puerto Rico	47.93	Q
2	Angelo Taylor	United States	47.95	Q, SB
3	Omar Cisneros	Cuba	48.23	SB
4	Emir Bekrić	Serbia	49.62
5	Kenneth Medwood	Belize	49.87
6	Stanislav Melnykov	Ukraine	50.19
7	Tristan Thomas	Australia	50.55
N/A	Jack Green	Great Britain	N/A

Heat 3

Rank	Athlete	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	Michael Tinsley	United States	48.18	Q, SB
2	Leford Green	Jamaica	48.61	Q, SB
3	Brent Larue	Slovenia	49.45
4	Rhys Williams	Great Britain	49.63
5	Brendan Cole	Australia	49.65
6	José Reynaldo Bencosme de Leon	Italy	50.07
7	Amaurys Valle	Cuba	50.48
N/A	Amaechi Morton	Nigeria	N/A

Notes: Q- Qualified by place
q - Qualified by performance (time)
PB - Personal Best
NR - National Record
SB - Seasonal Best
DQ - DisQualified
DNS - Did Not Start

Final

Rank	Athlete	Nationality	Time	Notes[5]
01 !	Félix Sánchez	Dominican Republic	47.63	WL, SB
02 !	Michael Tinsley	United States	47.91	PB
03 !	Javier Culson	Puerto Rico	48.10
4	Dai Greene	Great Britain	48.24
5	Angelo Taylor	United States	48.25
6	Jehue Gordon	Trinidad and Tobago	48.86
7	Leford Green	Jamaica	49.12
8	Kerron Clement	United States	49.15

References