The women's

400 metres hurdles The 400 metres hurdles is a track and field hurdling event. The event has been on the Olympic athletics programme since 1900 for men and since 1984 for women. On a standard outdoor track, 400 metres is the length of the inside lane, once ...

at the

2015 World Championships in Athletics The 2015 IAAF World Championships ( zh, 第十五届世界田径锦标赛), the fifteenth edition of the IAAF World Championships, were held from 22 to 30 August at the National Stadium in Beijing, China. Forty-three nations won medals, 144 of ...

was held at the

Beijing National Stadium The National Stadium (), also known as the Bird's Nest (), is an 80,000-capacity stadium in Beijing. The stadium was jointly designed by architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron from Basel-based architecture team Herzog & de Meuron, p ...

on 23, 24 and 26 August.

Summary

Zuzana Hejnová Zuzana Hejnová (; born 19 December 1986) is a retired Czech athlete who specialised in the 400 metres hurdles. She won the silver medal in the event at the 2012 London Olympics. Hejnová is a two-time World Champion, having claimed titles at t ...

of the Czech Republic entered the competition as the defending champion. Through these championships Cassandra Tate had been the #1 qualifier in the heats and #2 in the semi-finals, earning her a center lane position next to #1 qualifier, the defending champion Hejnová. The world leader coming into the event was World Junior Champion

Shamier Little Shamier Little (born March 20, 1995) is an American track and field sprinter specializing in the 400 metres hurdles. As a 20-year-old college sophomore at Texas A&M University, Little was the 2015 US champion. She then went on to win the silver ...

. While Little had been almost mechanical in winning the NCAA Championships, the US Championships and the

Pan American Games The Pan American Games (also known colloquially as the Pan Am Games) is a continental multi-sport event in the Americas featuring summer sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The competition is hel ...

over a long season, in this championship she struggled through the rounds, the slowest qualifier in both. Her slow time in the semi relegated her to the inside lane, lane 2 on Beijing's 9 lane track. In the finals, those were the players, with Hejnová in a clear lead by the final turn, with Little and Tate chasing. Hejnová just continued to build her lead unchallenged to the finish, as Little struggled over hurdle 8, stretching to 9 and again awkward at 10. Still Little's strength was able to beat Tate to the line for silver. Sara Petersen made a late rush at Tate coming into the 10th hurdle, but Tate carried her momentum better into the finish to claim bronze.

Records

Prior to the competition, the records were as follows:

Qualification standards

Schedule

Results

Heats

Qualification: Best 4 (Q) and next 4 fastest (q) qualify for the next round.

Semifinals

Qualification: Best 2 (Q) and next 2 fastest (q) qualify for the next round.

Final

The final was started at 20:10.Final results
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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:2015 World Championships in Athletics - Women's 400 metres hurdles

400 metres hurdles at the World Athletics Championships 2015 in women's athletics