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As this extraordinary year draws to a close, we look back at the key moments of 2020 in each area of the sport. The series continues today with a review of the hurdles disciplines.
<h2>Women's 100m hurdles </h2>
It is hard to find a simple explanation but the hurdle events turned out to be probably the most affected by the pandemic and its consequences. In 2019, 65 athletes dipped under 13 seconds. This year that number plummeted to just 17, a decrease of 70%.
That reduction was most conspicuous at the top end as last year's entire top-10 went missing in 2020. So it was just logical that the 2020 world-leading time of 12.68 would have sufficed for just 16th place on the 2019 world list.
Most of the top names in 2019 had indeed competed indoors this year but when it became clear that the Tokyo Olympics wouldn&rsquo;t transpire they chose to give the whole outdoor season a pass.
One major reason for the large drop was that the US, the dominant hurdling nation, left a large void in the lists. In 2019 the US had 29 sub-13 hurdlers; in 2020 just two. In the end Payton Chadwick was the top US hurdler, finishing as sixth on the world list with her winning 12.78 from the closing Diamond League meeting in Doha.
That left the event to the Europeans who ended up occupying the top-five positions on the world list. The top position went to Nadine Visser of the Netherlands who was the only athlete to dip under 12.70 - which she did twice - and who demonstrated consistency by winning eight out of her nine meets.
The biggest improvements came from Hungary&rsquo;s Luca Kozak who lowered her PB by 0.15 to a new 12.71 national record and Cyrena Samba-Mayela of France, who chipped 0.27 from her career best to 12.73, before her 20th birthday.
<h2>Men&rsquo;s 110m hurdles </h2>
Indoors things looked rather promising with Grant Holloway clocking a 7.38 world lead over the 60m hurdles in his only final of the indoor season. This was just 0.03 shy of his 7.35 US indoor record set in 2019. Behind Holloway things looked about the same as in 2019, but of course in the hurdles things always get more serious in the outdoor season but because of the Covid-19 outbreak, that didn&rsquo;t happen this season.
Holloway only started his season in late July and his two international appearances, the Herculis meet in Monaco and the Gyulai Memorial in Szekesfehervar, Hungary, where he clocked 13.19 and 13.22, were far from his best. The year concluded with 2019 world silver medallist Orlando Ortega sitting atop the season's list with his 13.11 from Monaco. The Spaniard competed only four times outdoors, winning each time, but the world-leading performance was the slowest in 33 years when Greg Foster clocked 13.17 in Lausanne to lead the world in 1987. The American won three consecutive world titles in 1983, 1987 and 1991.
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Briton Andy Pozzi was close behind in Monaco in 13.14, equalling his personal best from 2017 and also won major races in Turku and Rome. The 26-year-old American Aaron Mallett lowered his personal best in a major way in 2020, beginning the year with a 13.37 lifetime best from 2017. He clocked 13.15 to win in Doha in September.&nbsp;
<h2>Women's 400m hurdles </h2>
The pattern here is similar to that for the 100m hurdles, with a major drop-off in the top standards compared to 2019. The number of sub-55 performers fell from 17 last year down to just four in 2020.
Like in the other hurdles event the absence of US hurdlers was striking. Last year Dalilah Muhammad, Sydney McLaughlin, Ashley Spencer and Shamier Little took the top-four positions on the world list &ndash; this year none of them raced in the event. The leading US performance this year appears to be 58.83, well outside the world's top-100 for 2020.
So, as in the 100m hurdles, Europeans dominated the event, occupying seven of the top eight positions on the world list. And just like in the 100m hurdles the list leader came from the Netherlands where Femke Bol, having just turned 20 and in only her second year in the event, emerged as a strong future challenger to the US athletes.
Despite her age and limited experience, Bol ran her races like a seasoned veteran, always sticking to her own even paced plan. She never panicked despite losing ground early in some races, confident in her ability to come through strongly in the second half.
In July 2019, Bol took the European U20 title in 56.25 and then in October ran 55.32 in the heats at the World Championships in Doha. This year she ran six races, winning them all. She clocked sub-55 in each of her appearances and sub-54 twice.
<h2>Men&rsquo;s 400m hurdles </h2>
The men&rsquo;s 400m hurdles was one of the most impacted events of the season. Most of the stars were absent from the track, but that didn&rsquo;t mean that fast times were lacking. Karsten Warholm, the winner of the last two world titles, opened in June with a 33.78 world best in the 300m hurdles in Oslo, despite running alone. Then the 24-year-old put together a show that fans will remember for a long time. The Norwegian started with a 47.10 performance in Monaco and then set a European record of 46.87 in Stockholm, just 0.09 seconds shy of Kevin Young&rsquo;s 46.78 world record which has stood for 28 years.
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Warholm easily won each of his six races in 2020, with the thinnest winning margin a whopping 1.52 seconds. He now holds four of the world's 10 fastest performances all-time - only Rai Benjamin of the US, with two, has more than one. In just three seasons Warholm has collected 17 sub-48 performances, already eighth all-time. Considering that 2020 was so short, he will likely soon pass all others with the exception of Edwin Moses, who broke that barrier a massive 45 times.
Mirko Jalava (men&rsquo;s disciplines) and A Lennart Julin (women&rsquo;s disciplines) for World Athletics

As this extraordinary year draws to a close, we look back at the key moments of 2020 in each area of the sport. The series continues today with a review of the hurdles disciplines.

2020 review: hurdles

Britany Anderson of Jamaica ran 12.72, the fastest ever 100m hurdles time by an U18 athlete, in winning the final.
Although she was helped by a 4.1m/s following wind, Anderson&rsquo;s time was so much quicker than the world U18 best of 12.94 set by compatriot YaniqueThompson, she could well have been capable of breaking that mark in legal conditions.
Taking silver behind the Jamaican was Cyrena Samba-Mayela of France with 12.80, also significantly faster than the world U18 best of 12.94. Anderson's teammate Daszay Freeman finished third in 13.09.
Anderson came to these championships as the fastest in the world with a best of 13.04. This performance, however, was bettered by Samba-Mayela in yesterday's semifinals with 12.98, so it was no surprise to see these two fight it out for gold in the final.
Samba-Mayela looked to be pulling away from her Jamaican rival, but then lost her momentum after hitting a hurdle late in the race. She recovered her momentum well, but the race was lost. Anderson took the win by a clear 0.08 margin.
There was a significant gap to Freeman, who never looked like she could threaten the top two, but made it two medals for her country. Yoveini Mota of Venezuela took fourth place, again well behind Freeman with 13.28, and the second French athlete, Mathilde Coquillaud Salomon, finished fifth in 13.37.
Sevval Ayaz of Turkey, looking like a possible contender after a 13.20 in the semifinals, was a non-finisher after a heavy fall early on in the race.
&ldquo;This gold medal means so much for me, because I have trained very hard this season,&rdquo; the happy winner said after the race. &ldquo;I had a knee injury, but this win made me confident. You can achieve anything you focus on.&rdquo;
&ldquo;It was an incredible race, although I am not so happy with it,&rdquo; said Samba-Mayela. &ldquo;I touched several hurdles on the way and it affected my position.&rdquo;
Pawel Jackowski for the IAAF

Britany Anderson of Jamaica ran 12.72, the fastest ever 100m hurdles time by an U18 athlete, in winning the final.

Report: girls' 100m hurdles – IAAF World U18 Championships Nairobi 2017

Jamaica's Brittany Anderson has become a hurdler only this year, having previously specialised in the sprints and long jump, but she has now earned the favourite status.
Anderson's best of 13.04, achieved at the end of March, moved her to equal fourth on the world U18 all-time list, and yet it may not even do justice to her abilities. The 13.16 she ran to win the U18 race at the Carifta Games was into -2.1m/s wind, and she took the national U18 title in 12.94 with the wind just over the legal limit (2.3m/s).
Not far behind Anderson on the world list is Cyrena Samba-Mayela of France with her 13.13 from the recent national U18 championships. In addition to two more races of 13.18 and 13.20, she has already run 13.22 over the higher senior hurdles this year.
Perhaps the biggest danger to the top two is Daszay Freeman of Jamaica. While her official best is a relatively modest 13.37, she also ran 12.98 in the marginally wind-aided race at the national U18 championships, finishing just behind Anderson.
Sevval Ayaz of Turkey, with a consistent series of times this year, headed by a 13.32, is yet another contender, as is Marketa Stolova of the Czech Republic with 13.31.
Pawel Jackowski for the IAAF

Jamaica's Brittany Anderson has become a hurdler only this year, having previously specialised in the sprints and long jump, but she has now earned the favourite status.

Preview: girls' 100m hurdles – IAAF World U18 Championships Nairobi 2017

The afternoon after Maribel Vanessa Caicedo claimed her surprise victory in the 100m hurdles, the freshly minted world youth champion made her future athletics ambitions perfectly clear.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to be Olympic champion, too.&rdquo;The 17-year-old wasn&rsquo;t being brash or cocky. That proclamation was simply shared as a matter of fact by a young woman whose trip to Cali instilled in her a confidence she otherwise might never have found. Considering that Caicedo didn&rsquo;t even decide to focus fully on the hurdles until this year, her bold prediction hardly seems out of place.Arriving at the championships with a modest 13.49 best to her name, set when winning the South American youth title in Cali last year, the Ecuadorian standout wasn&rsquo;t really on the medallists&rsquo; radar; even she admitted as much. But that changed as the rounds progressed.She improved to 13.32 when winning her first-round heat before bursting into medal contention after a 13.11 run in the semis that jettisoned her to the top of the world youth lists.&ldquo;I felt very good in the heats and even better in the semis, and even better in the final,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Honestly I expected to improve with each race. And after the semis I definitely felt that a medal was possible. But I could never expect that I would win gold.&rdquo;Standing in her way was pre-meeting favourite Alexis Duncan of the USA who followed up with a sensational 12.95 in her semi, a performance just 0.01 shy of the world youth best.&ldquo;Yes, I was scared when I saw 12.95 in the semis,&rdquo; Caicedo said, before bursting into a wide smile.But in the final, she never lost focus. Casting aside that fear of her opposition, she concentrated solely on what was in front of her. That ability was spotted early on in her career by her first and only coach Fatima Navarro.&ldquo;Ever since she was very young, she&rsquo;s been very focused and very well concentrated,&rdquo; Navarro said. &ldquo;We were training to get to the final. We knew we would get to the final.&rdquo;Their road to that final in Cali began nine years ago when Caicedo, encouraged by her aunt Jasmin Garcia, a sprinter, first stepped on to a track in her hometown of Guayaquil at age eight.&ldquo;She asked me, &lsquo;Do you want to go?&rsquo; And I said, &lsquo;Sure, if you&rsquo;re going I&rsquo;ll go with you&rsquo;.&rdquo; She took a liking to it immediately.Caicedo began as many youngsters do, competing in several events to see where her strengths lie and to keep her interest high. Navarro had her run the sprints, the hurdles and long jump. It was only late last year that they decided to focus their concentration on the hurdles.&ldquo;Last year she broke the South American youth record in the hurdles so we began to focus more on that,&rdquo; Navarro said. Caicedo happily agreed with the decision.&ldquo;I like the hurdles because it&rsquo;s the most exciting race,&rdquo; she said.Nonetheless, they had tentatively planned to double in Cali and contest the 100m as well &ndash; Caicedo has an 11.55 PB in the event &ndash; but with the events so close on the schedule, they decided the hurdles would be enough.In Cali, Navarro said the focus was to use her strengths &ndash; her solid start and steely focus and concentration &ndash; to her fullest advantage.&ldquo;I know that she has a great start, the best of the competitors from the blocks to the first hurdle,&rdquo; said Navarro, who timed the starts of all the competitors in all the preliminary races.&ldquo;She&rsquo;s very strong and very impulsive. I told her to concentrate on her start, to get out really fast, and then to not worry about anything else. To just enjoy her race. To never look right, never look left. To just look towards the finish line.&rdquo;&ldquo;This was the race we had planned: that she would be first from the start, and she was, and then she was never overtaken. We thought the final would be a photo finish, but in the end as it happened she won by a wide margin.&rdquo;Her 13.04 performance landed her in the No. 4 position on the world youth all-time list and secured Ecuador&rsquo;s first track medal at these championships. She also managed to outdo her compatriot and idol Angela Tenorio, a double sprint medallist at both the 2013 World Youth and 2014 World Junior Championships.When she&rsquo;s not on the track competing or training, she keeps busy as the oldest of six brothers and sisters. And, as teenagers do, she sleeps. A lot.&ldquo;Yes, I enjoy it,&rdquo; she says, laughing again.She&rsquo;s also entering her final year of high school where she&rsquo;s focusing on health sciences. For now, her academic interests are geared towards teaching physical education. But that now appears to be a vocation that will wait as her athletics career continues to unfold.&ldquo;This is a huge opportunity for me,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I know that now. I&rsquo;m going to train even harder and concentrate even more on my training.&rdquo;But her season&rsquo;s not over. She&rsquo;s got more national team duty coming up at the Pan-American Junior Championships in Toronto later this month. This time, there will be no mistaking who she is and what she&rsquo;s capable of.Bob Ramsak for the IAAF

The afternoon after Maribel Vanessa Caicedo claimed her surprise victory in the 100m hurdles, the freshly minted world youth champion made her future athletics ambitions perfectly clear.

No longer an unknown, Caicedo looks to the future

Capping what may be remembered as the most rapid rise of these championships, Maribel Vanessa Caicedo powered her way to a wholly unexpected victory in the girls&rsquo; 100m hurdles at the IAAF World Youth Championships on Thursday (16).Running confidently in lane four in the very last event of the night, the 17-year-old overcame a cautious start to take a clear lead by the fifth barrier, one she built upon hurdle-by-hurdle en route to a 13.04 victory and Ecuador&rsquo;s first gold in the history of the IAAF World Youth Championships.&ldquo;I am very happy,&rdquo; said Caicedo, who was barely on the radar coming into these championships but now stands fourth on the girls&rsquo; all-time list for the event. &ldquo;I dreamt a lot about this medal and now it is real.&rdquo; Arriving with just a 13.49 best to her name &ndash; set in the same stadium when winning the South American youth title last year &ndash; she improved to 13.32 when winning her first-round heat on Wednesday but really burst into medal contention after her 13.11 run in the semis. Suddenly, albeit only for a few minutes, she was the year&rsquo;s fastest youth sprint hurdler.&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t believe it,&rdquo; Caicedo said after her semi-final, trying, mostly in vain, to contain her delight. <div class="quote">&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a South American record! I worked so hard for this in our training camp in Guayaquil.&rdquo;</div>But she readily admitted that it wasn&rsquo;t a perfect race. &ldquo;I had some problems at the third hurdle. I hope I can improve in the final.&rdquo;Caicedo&rsquo;s reign atop the yearly list was short-lived as the US pre-championship favourite Alexis Duncan followed up with a sensational 12.95 victory in her semi-final, just .01 shy of Jamaican Yanique Thompson&rsquo;s world youth best set at the last IAAF World Youth Championships in the Ukrainian city of Donetsk two years ago. In the final, Duncan got out fast and appeared to be ahead after clearing the second hurdle and starting her charge to glory. But she hit the third just hard enough to break both her rhythm and composure, neither of which she managed to regain. Caicedo meanwhile forged on without missing a beat to cross the line well clear of USA&rsquo;s Brittley Humphrey who finished second in 13.22, a performance that took a massive 0.19 from her previous best."I&rsquo;m so happy with this medal,&rdquo; said Humphrey. &ldquo;I ran a great time, I didn&rsquo;t think I could go that fast.&rdquo;France&rsquo;s Sarah Koutouan took the bronze in 13.29, finishing just ahead of team-mate Ilionis Guillaume who clocked 13.31.Duncan was never in the hunt after her early race misstep and wound up a distant and disappointed seventh in 13.56.Bob Ramsak for the IAAF

Capping what may be remembered as the most rapid rise of these championships, Maribel Vanessa Caicedo powered her way to a wholly unexpected victory in the girls’ 100m hurdles at the IAAF World Youth Championships on Thursday (16).

Girls' 100m hurdles – IAAF World Youth Championships, Cali 2015

Barely 30 minutes after the IAAF World Youth Championships, Cali 2015 got under way in the Colombian city, jaws dropped in the Pascual Guerrero stadium as Japan&rsquo;s Abdul Hakim Sani Brown sped to a championship record of 10.30 in the first heat of the 100m on Wednesday morning (15).Sani Brown, who has a Ghanaian father and Japanese mother, shaved 0.01 from the time set by Trinidad and Tobago&rsquo;s Darrel Brown in 2001 and equalled his personal best which is also the best time by a boy this year.Certainly the 962m altitude of the stadium helped, and expect to see some more superb times and distances in the sprints and jumps, but it was indicative of the fact that he has arrived in the Colombian city in fine form and could have the world youth best of 10.19, which belongs his compatriot Yoshihide Kiryu, in his sights.Brazil&rsquo;s Derick Silva was the next best when he won heat four in 10.42.Almost as impressive was the US hurdler Alexis Duncan who sped to a world-youth-leading time of 13.13 in the girls' 100m hurdles, which took 0.07 off her best and moved her up to sixth on the all-time list. Ecuador&rsquo;s Maribel Vanessa Caicedo was the next best in a personal best of 13.32.As is often traditionally the case, the decathlon&nbsp;&ndash; the first time it has been on the championship programme at this level as it has previously been an octathlon &ndash; also got underway on the opening morning.Estonia&rsquo;s Hans-Christian Hausenberg established a clear lead after two events with after being the quickest in the 100m with 10.83 and then coming out on top in the long jump with a leap of 7.53m.Hausenberg has an advantage of 121 points over USA&rsquo;s George Patrick, who is in second place.Languishing down in 15th place at the moment is Germany&rsquo;s event favourite Niklas Kaul but he is an outstanding thrower and will be expected to make up ground later in the competition.<h3>Kenyans and Ethiopians dominate 1500m heats</h3>The boys' 1500m heats went entirely to form with Ethiopia&rsquo;s Mulugata Assefa looking comfortable when winning the first heat in 3:52.97, followed home by Kenya&rsquo;s Lawi Kosgei.Kosgei&rsquo;s compatriot Kumari Taki then won reversed matters and won the second heat in 3:48.71, with Ethiopia&rsquo;s Welde Tufa second.Given this quartet&rsquo;s pedigree and impressive showing in the heats, it would be a huge surprise if anyone else was among the medals.Egypt&rsquo;s Shehab Mohamed Abdalaziz quickly secured qualification for the boys&rsquo; shot put final when he sent his implement out to a personal best of 20.79m with his first attempt.Also beyond 20 metres in qualifying were Poland&rsquo;s Szymon Mazur with 20.77m and Sweden&rsquo;s Wictor Petersson with 20.02m, both easily exceeding the automatic qualifying distance of 19.45m with their first efforts.USA&rsquo;s Josephus Lyles was the fastest boy in the 400m heats in 46.26 but just 0.01 behind him was Colombia&rsquo;s Anthony Jose Zambrano in a national youth record of 46.27 to give the host nation enhanced hopes of appearing on the medal table at these championships.Despite good conditions for high jumping, only six girls got over the automatic qualifying height of 1.80m but Czech favourite Michaela Hruba, a silver medallist at the IAAF World Junior Championships last summer, showed her experience and class when needing only two attempts &ndash; one each at 1.77m and 1.80m &ndash; to progress.Russia&rsquo;s Tatyana Ermanchenkova was also flawless among the six girls who got over 1.80m.Canada&rsquo;s Kyra Constantine made a big impression when she was the fastest in the first round of the girls&rsquo; 400m in a personal best of 53.20 but it was noticeable that many of the other expected medal contenders were running well within themselves at this stage of the competition.Australia&rsquo;s Darcy Roper gave all the other long jumpers something to think about when he flew out to 7.88m in the qualification round, a distance only he and the two Cubans, worldyouth leader Maykel Masso and Juan Miguel Echevarria, have beaten this year. Both the Cubans also qualified without too much difficulty.Phil Minshull for the IAAF

Barely 30 minutes after the IAAF World Youth Championships, Cali 2015 got under way in the Colombian city, jaws dropped in the Pascual Guerrero stadium as Japan’s Abdul Hakim Sani Brown sped to a championship record of 10.30 in the first heat of the 100m on Wednesday morning (15).

Sani Brown gets opening morning in Cali off to a flying start

World youth leader Alexis Duncan arrives in Cali with strong ambitions to become the USA&rsquo;s fourth 100m hurdles champion.
The 16-year-old has produced the two quickest times of the season, 13.20 in Havana in early June at the Caribbean Scholastic Invitational and 13.24 in the heats of the national youth championships on 30 June which she won the following day with 13.32, running against a -1.9m/s headwind.&nbsp;
Perhaps her biggest accomplishment of the season came in May when she successfully defended her Texas high school state title, one of the most fiercely competitive youth competitions in the US.
On paper, her primary challenger is South Africa&rsquo;s Taylon Bieldt, whose clocked 13.27 at altitude at home in Bloemfontein. Thirteen days later she won the African youth title in Reduit in 13.30.
France comes armed with two potential medallists in Ilionis Guillaume and Sarah Koutouan, whose 13.32 and 13.40 personal bests, respectively, came in the same race in Cergy-Pontoise on 28 June, won by the former.
Meanwhile, Jamaica&rsquo;s top hope to keep the title in the Caribbean island nation&rsquo;s possession is Janeek Brown who made a big improvement to 13.29 when taking the Carifta crown in April.
Bob Ramsak for the IAAF

World youth leader Alexis Duncan arrives in Cali with strong ambitions to become the USA’s fourth 100m hurdles champion.

Girls' 100m hurdles preview – IAAF World Youth Championships Cali 2015

Flying to a 12.94 World youth best, Jamaica’s Yanique
Thompson captured her nation’s first gold medal in this event during the eight
editions of this championship, following their three silver medals at the 2003,
2005 and 2007 events.The 17-year-old had ran no faster than 13.23 before arriving
in Donestk but registered 13.10 in her semi-final winning performance before
saving her best for the final.Pulling clear in the final 10 metres after a blistering
start and having cleared all ten barriers with ease, the Jamaican was followed
by the USA’s Dior Hall who sped to a 13.01 personal best to take the silver
medal ahead of team-mate Mikiah Brisco (13.29) in third with another lifetime
best mark.Seventeen-year-old Hall improved from 13.16 in the
semi-final stage – a World youth lead before Thompson’s 13.10 – and was a
semi-finalist at the World Junior Championships in Barcelona last summer.The previous World youth best for the 76cm-height hurdles
was set by Adriana Lamalle of France back in 1999, though in 1979 USA’s Candy
Young ran a superior 12.95 over the senior-height hurdles.Hall and Brisco’s silverware continued the fine US showing
in this event, following three gold, one silver and four bronze medals for the
USA in the 14-year history of this championship.In fourth, Jamaica’s Rushelle Burton clocked a 13.32
personal best, with Sweden’s Adriana Janic close behind in fifth with a 13.33
lifetime best.