110 metres hurdles 100 yards (91.44 m). The first standards were attempted in 1864 in Oxford and Cambridge: The length of the course was set to 120 yards (109.7 m) and over its course, runners were required to clear ten 3 foot 6 inch (1.07 m) high hurdles. The height and spacing of the hurdles have been related to Imperial units ever since. After the length of the course was rounded up to 110 metres in France in 1888, the standards were pretty much complete (except for Germany where 1 metre high hurdles were used until 1907). The massively constructed hurdles of the
110 metres hurdles a course of 80 metres from 1932 to 1968. Starting with the 1972 Summer Olympics, the women's race was set at 100 metres. In the early 20th century, the race was often contested as 120 yard hurdles, thus the imperial units distances between hurdles. The fastest 110 metre hurdlers run the distance in around 13 seconds. Aries Merritt of the United States holds the current world record of 12.80 seconds, set at the Memorial Van Damme meet on 7 September 2012 in Belgium. For the first hurdles races in England around 1830, wooden barriers were placed along a stretch of