The men's 110 metres hurdles event at the 2020 Summer Olympics took place between 3 and 5 August 2021 at the Olympic Stadium. Approximately forty athletes were expected to compete; the exact number was dependent on how many nations used universality places to enter athletes in addition to the 40 qualifying through time or ranking (1 universality place was used in 2016). 40 athletes from 29 nations competed. Hansle Parchment of Jamaica won the gold medal, the nation's second consecutive victory in the event. His countryman Ronald Levy took bronze. American Grant Holloway earned silver, placing the United States back on the podium in the event after the nation missed the medals for the first time in Rio 2016 (excluding the boycotted 1980 Games).

Summary

Coming in to the Olympics, Grant Holloway was the clear favorite. He was undefeated and tickled the world record with a 12.81 to win the US Trials, the #2 time in history. He was the only athlete under 13 seconds all year. His closest competitor on the yearly list was defending champion Omar McLeod from the heats of the Jamaican Olympic Trials. But McLeod failed to qualify for the Olympics from the strong field in those trials. McLeod tried to appeal to change the team makeup, but which deserving athlete would be left home to make room for him? His appeal failed. As expected, Holloway had the fastest times in the heats and the semis. 2012 bronze medalist Hansle Parchment was also in contention.

In the final, the script looked the same. Holloway was first out of the blocks, first over the first hurdle and had a clear lead over the closely matched wall of athletes behind him. By the fourth hurdle, Holloway had close to a metre lead, Ronald Levy then Andrew Pozzi emerged in second and third. Devon Allen and Hansle Parchment were close behind. Over the next three hurdles, Parchment made a big move to separate from the others, still a metre down on Holloway. Over the final three hurdles, Holloway lost his momentum. Parchment and the wall gained steadily. Holloway was still first over the last hurdle, but the thundering herd was approaching. Parchment went by with 10 metres to go. The next was Levy but Holloway executed a better lean at the finish, officially credited with .01 advantage over Levy to take silver. Two of the three people who beat McLeod at the Jamaican trials ended up on the podium.

Background This was the 29th appearance of the event, which is one of 12 athletics events to have been held at every Summer Olympics.

Comoros and Hong Kong competed in the men's 110 metres hurdles for the first time. The United States made its 28th appearance, most of any nation (having missed only the boycotted 1980 Games).

Qualification

A National Olympic Committee (NOC) could enter up to 3 qualified athletes in the men's 110 metres hurdles event if all athletes meet the entry standard or qualify by ranking during the qualifying period. (The limit of 3 has been in place since the 1930 Olympic Congress.) The qualifying standard is 13.32 seconds. This standard was "set for the sole purpose of qualifying athletes with exceptional performances unable to qualify through the IAAF World Rankings pathway." The world rankings, based on the average of the best five results for the athlete over the qualifying period and weighted by the importance of the meet, will then be used to qualify athletes until the cap of 40 is reached.

The qualifying period was originally from 1 May 2019 to 29 June 2020. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the period was suspended from 6 April 2020 to 30 November 2020, with the end date extended to 29 June 2021. The world rankings period start date was also changed from 1 May 2019 to 30 June 2020; athletes who had met the qualifying standard during that time were still qualified, but those using world rankings would not be able to count performances during that time. The qualifying time standards could be obtained in various meets during the given period that have the approval of the IAAF. Only outdoor meets are eligible. The most recent Area Championships may be counted in the ranking, even if not during the qualifying period.

NOCs can also use their universality place—each NOC can enter one male athlete regardless of time if they had no male athletes meeting the entry standard for an athletics event—in the 110 metres hurdles.

Entry number: 40.

Qualification standard No. of athletes NOC Nominated athletesEntry standard – 13.323 Wilhem BelocianAurel MangaPascal Martinot-Lagarde3 Ronald LevyHansle ParchmentDamion Thomas3 Shunsuke IzumiyaTaio KanaiShunya Takayama3 Devon AllenGrant HollowayDaniel Roberts2 Gabriel ConstantinoEduardo de Deus2 Asier MartínezOrlando Ortega1 Sergey Shubenkov1 Shane Brathwaite1 Vitali Parakhonka1 Michael Obasuyi1 Xie Wenjun1 Milan Trajkovic1 Elmo Lakka1 Andrew Pozzi1 Paolo Dal Molin1 Antonio AlkanaWorld ranking1 Nicholas Hough1 Rafael Henrique Pereira1 Chen Kuei-ru1 Gregor Traber1 David King1 Konstantinos Douvalidis1 Valdó Szűcs1 Hassane Fofana1 Yaqoub Al-Youha1 Damian Czykier1 Jason JosephUniversality places1 Fadane Hamadi1 Chan Chung Wang1 Jérémie Lararaudeuse Total 40

Competition format The event continued to use the three-round format used previously in 1908–1956, 1964–1984, and since 2012.

Records Prior to this competition, the existing global and area records were as follows.

Area Time (s) Wind Athlete Nation Africa 13.11 +1.8 Antonio Alkana Asia 12.88 +1.1 Liu Xiang Europe 12.91 +0.5 Colin Jackson North, Central Americaand the Caribbean 12.80 +0.3 Aries Merritt Oceania 13.29 +0.6 Kyle Vander Kuyp South America 13.18 +0.8 Gabriel Constantino

Schedule All times are Japan Standard Time (UTC+9)

The men's 110 metres hurdles took place over three consecutive days.

Date Time Round Tuesday, 3 August 2021 19:00 Round 1 Wednesday, 4 August 2021 9:00 Semifinals Thursday, 5 August 2021 9:00 Final

Results Round 1 Qualification Rules: First 4 in each heat (Q) and the next 4 fastest (q) advance to the Semifinals.

Heat 1 RankLaneAthleteNationTimeNotes14Ronald Levy13.1726Jason Joseph13.31 , 39Valdó Szűcs13.50 (13.496)42Andrew Pozzi13.50 (13.500)55Gabriel Constantino13.5568Michael Obasuyi13.6577Louis François Mendy13.84 —3Wilhem Belocian

Heat 2 RankLaneAthleteNationTimeNotes17Asier Martínez13.3225Daniel Roberts13.4138Damion Thomas13.5442Milan Trajkovic13.59, 59Vitali Parakhonka13.6164Shane Brathwaite13.6473Yaqoub Al-Youha13.6986Hassane Fofana13.70

Heat 3 RankLaneAthleteNationTimeNotes19Grant Holloway13.0227Hansle Parchment13.2333Nicholas Hough13.5745Damian Czykier13.6154Gregor Traber13.6562Shunya Takayama13.9871Jérémie Lararaudeuse14.0388Fadane Hamadi14.99 —6Sergey Shubenkov

Heat 4 RankLaneAthleteNationTimeNotes18Aurel Manga13.24, =26Shunsuke Izumiya13.2834Rafael Henrique Pereira13.4642Xie Wenjun13.5153Chen Kuei-ru13.53, 61David King13.5579Eddie Lovett14.1787Chan Chung Wang14.23 —5Orlando Ortega

Heat 5 RankLaneAthleteNationTimeNotes15Devon Allen13.2123Pascal Martinot-Lagarde13.37, 37Taio Kanai13.4148Paolo Dal Molin13.4456Elmo Lakka13.4864Antonio Alkana13.5572Konstantinos Douvalidis13.6389Eduardo de Deus13.78

Semifinals Qualification Rules: First 2 in each heat (Q) and the next two fastest (q) advance to the final.

Semifinal 1 Rank Lane Athlete Nation Reaction Time Notes 1 7 Ronald Levy 0.154 13.23 2 4 Pascal Martinot-Lagarde 0.155 13.25 , 3 6 Asier Martínez 0.150 13.27 , 4 8 Andrew Pozzi 0.148 13.32 5 5 Daniel Roberts 0.195 13.33 6 2 Damian Czykier 0.152 13.63 7 9 Nicholas Hough 0.163 13.88 8 3 Gabriel Constantino 0.159 13.89

Semifinal 2 Rank Lane Athlete Nation Reaction Time Notes 1 5 Devon Allen 0.121 13.18 2 6 Aurel Manga 0.151 13.24 , = 3 8 Damion Thomas 0.135 13.39 4 9 Paolo Dal Molin 0.133 13.40 5 4 Jason Joseph 0.135 13.46 6 2 Chen Kuei-ru 0.146 13.57 7 3 Elmo Lakka 0.139 13.67 8 7 Taio Kanai 0.127 26.11

Semifinal 3 Rank Lane Athlete Nation Reaction Time Notes 1 4 Grant Holloway 0.130 13.13 2 6 Hansle Parchment 0.145 13.23 3 7 Shunsuke Izumiya 0.141 13.35 4 9 Valdó Szűcs 0.140 13.40 5 8 Xie Wenjun 0.154 13.58 6 5 Rafael Henrique Pereira 0.154 13.62 7 2 David King 0.141 13.67 8 3 Milan Trajkovic 0.147 14.01

Final

Rank Lane Athlete Nation Reaction Time Notes 7 Hansle Parchment 0.130 13.04 4 Grant Holloway 0.136 13.09 5 Ronald Levy 0.146 13.10 4 6 Devon Allen 0.133 13.14 5 8 Pascal Martinot-Lagarde 0.120 13.16 6 2 Asier Martínez 0.155 13.22 7 3 Andrew Pozzi 0.140 13.30 8 9 Aurel Manga 0.151 13.38 Wind: -0.5 m/s

References