Can you time a hurdles race the same way you time a sprint?
The timing side of StatLap only watches a sound and a line, so ten barriers between them change nothing about how it works.
Coaches ask this because hurdling feels like a more complicated race to time. More can go wrong on the track, so it seems reasonable to worry more can go wrong with the phones too. It does not work out that way.
What the timer is actually watching
One phone sits at the start and listens for the gun, having learned that sound beforehand so it ignores everything else. One phone sits at the finish and watches a line drawn on the screen, stopping the clock when a torso crosses it. Neither of those jobs changes because there are ten barriers between the start and the finish instead of none. A hurdles race times exactly the way a flat sprint does, because the timer is never watching the hurdles at all.
What actually needs care
- A hurdle knocked down near the finish can clutter the frame if the field is bunched, but the line you drew is still what the clock reads, not the hurdle.
- A stumble or a fall mid-race does not confuse the clock either, since it only watches the finish line.
- A tight finish between hurdlers needs the same careful line placement any close flat-race finish needs, no more and no less.
What the clock will not tell you is how the race in between went. A time says the race took 14.6 seconds. It says nothing about whether the fourth hurdle cost half of that.
A camera framed to catch the tape at the finish is a single view of one line, and a good one needs to be square to it. That framing cannot also be the side-on angle the Film Room's hurdles setting needs to read trunk dip and lead-leg extension at a barrier in the middle of the race. Those are two different clips, filmed for two different questions, and one camera cannot answer both from where it is standing at the line.
Time your next meet with the phones you already have
Timing, the Film Room and the speed gates are free forever. Publishing results to your own page starts at $59 a month.
Related
Should your 300 hurdler learn to lead with both legs?
Yes, and the time to start was the part of the season where it cost nothing, which is never the week you discover you need it.
Read →Which foot goes in front in the starting blocks?
The popular rules of thumb contradict each other, which is why the only answer worth trusting is a timed one.
Read →Why your hurdler slows down after the last hurdle
The run-in to the line gets almost no practice time, and in a race decided by hundredths that is where a lot of it goes.
Read →Try it: Sprint timer app: 40-yard dash and flying sprints with one phone