The

60 metres 60 metres, or 60-meter dash, is a sprint event in track and field. It is a championship event for indoor championships, normally dominated by the best outdoor 100 metres runners. At outdoor venues it is a rare distance, at least for senior ath ...

at the Summer Olympics was contested at the

multi-sport event A multi-sport event is an organized sporting event, often held over multiple days, featuring competition in many different sports among organized teams of athletes from (mostly) nation-states. The first major, modern, multi-sport event of interna ...

in 1900 and 1904. Part of the Olympic athletics programme, it is the shortest

sprinting Sprinting is running over a short distance at the top-most speed of the body in a limited period of time. It is used in many sports that incorporate running, typically as a way of quickly reaching a target or goal, or avoiding or catching an op ...

event to have featured at the Olympics. The shortest sprinting event on the current programme is the

100 metres The 100 metres, or 100-meter dash, is a sprint race in track and field competitions. The shortest common outdoor running distance, the dash is one of the most popular and prestigious events in the sport of athletics. It has been conteste ...

. Only men competed in the two years that the event was held. The

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

dominated the event in its short history, winning five of the six medals given out. None of the medallists were specialists in the event and all of them won Olympic medals in different events in their careers.

Alvin Kraenzlein Alvin Christian "Al" Kraenzlein (December 12, 1876 – January 6, 1928) was an American track-and-field athlete known as "the father of the modern hurdling technique". He was the first sportsman in the history of the Olympic games to win four i ...

's 1900 victory formed part of a haul of four gold medals at that Olympics, as he also won two

hurdling Hurdling is the act of jumping over an obstacle at a high speed or in a sprint. In the early 19th century, hurdlers ran at and jumped over each hurdle (sometimes known as 'burgles'), landing on both feet and checking their forward motion. Today, ...

titles and the

long jump The long jump is a track and field event in which athletes combine speed, strength and agility in an attempt to leap as far as possible from a takeoff point. Along with the triple jump, the two events that measure jumping for distance as a ...

. Archie Hahn became the only man to have won three sprint titles in one Olympics in 1904, taking the short sprint titles from 60 metres up to

200 metres The 200 metres, or 200-meter dash, is a sprint running event. On an outdoor 400 metre racetrack, the race begins on the curve and ends on the home straight, so a combination of techniques is needed to successfully run the race. A slightl ...

.Archie Hahn
Sports Reference. Retrieved on 2014-03-22. The fastest hand-timed performance for this event at the Olympics was seven seconds. This was twice achieved by Kraenzlein in 1900, was matched by fellow Americans Clyde Blair and Bill Hogenson in the 1904 first round, and equalled for a final time by Hahn in the 1904 final. At the 1904 Summer Olympics a

60-yard dash 6 (six) is the natural number following 5 and preceding 7. It is a composite number and the smallest perfect number. In mathematics Six is the smallest positive integer which is neither a square number nor a prime number; it is the second small ...

handicap race was held and an American, C. Hastedt, was the winner. This contest is no longer considered part of the official Olympic canon of events.Olympic Games (Men)
GBR Athletics. Retrieved on 2014-03-22. After the event's removal from the Olympic programme, the 60 metres never featured at any other major outdoor international championship and it is now a common event in

indoor track and field Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping events ...

competitions.

Medal summary

Medals by country

References

Athletics Men's 60 metres Medalists
Sports Reference. Retrieved on 2014-03-22. ;Specific

External links

Official Olympics website
{{History of Olympic athletics events Olympics