(nearest camera), Heike Theele, and
Kerstin Knabe (1986) The race started back in the 1830s in England where wooden barriers were placed along a 100-yard stretch. The hurdles event was included as part of the inaugural Women's World Games in 1922, and made its first appearance in the
Olympic Games in 1932 as 80m hurdles. Starting with the
1972 Summer Olympics, the women's race was lengthened to 100m hurdles. The hurdles sprint race has been run by women since the beginning of women's athletics, just after the end of World War I. The distances and hurdle heights varied widely in the beginning. While the men had zeroed in on the
110 m hurdles, the
International Women's Sport Federation had registered records for eight different disciplines by 1926 (60
yards/75 cm height, 60 yards/61 cm, 65 yards/75 cm, 83 yards/75 cm, 100 yards/75 cm, 100 yards/61 cm, 120 yards/75 cm, 110 metres/75 cm). At the first
Women's World Games in 1922, a 100 m hurdles race was run. From 1926 until 1968, the distance was 80 metres: women had to clear eight hurdles placed at a distance of 8 metres from each other and a height of . Just like with the men's races, until 1935 no more than three hurdles could be knocked over, or the runner was disqualified, and records were only officially registered if the runner had cleared all her hurdles clean. In 1935, this rule was abandoned, and L-shaped hurdles were introduced that fell over forward easily and greatly reduced the risk of injury to the runner. Hurdles are weighted, so when properly set for the height (for women, closer to the fulcrum of the "L"), they serve as a consistent disadvantage to making contact with the barrier. The
80 m hurdles was on the list of women's sports demanded by the International Women's Sport Federation for the
Olympic Summer Games in 1928, but was not included as an Olympic discipline until 1932. Starting with 1949, the 80 m hurdles was one of the disciplines included in the
women's pentathlon. During the 1960s, some experimental races were run over a distance of 100 metres using hurdles with a height of . During the
1968 Summer Olympics, a decision was made to introduce the 100 m hurdles from 1969, using hurdles with a height of . The first international event in the 100 m hurdles occurred at the European Athletics Championships, which were won by
Karin Balzer of the
GDR. The modern 100 m race has an extra two hurdles compared to the 80 m race, which are higher and spaced slightly further apart. The home stretch is shorter by 1.5 m. Currently, women run 110 m hurdles at the
World Athletics Relays, a mixed team event, which was instituted in
2019. ==Masters athletics==