Quick Facts Men's 110 metres hurdles at the Games of the I Olympiad, Venue ...

Men's 110 metres hurdles at the Games of the I Olympiad
Alajos Szokolyi hurdling
Venue	Panathinaiko Stadium
Dates	April 7, 1896 (heats) April 10, 1896 (final)
Competitors	8 from 6 nations
Winning time	17.6 OR
Medalists
Thomas Curtis  United States Grantley Goulding  Great Britain
1900 →

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The men's 110 metres hurdles was the only hurdling event on the Athletics at the 1896 Summer Olympics programme. The preliminary heats were the first track event of the day on 7 April. Eight competitors ran in two heats of four runners each. Only the fastest two runners in each heat advanced to the final.^[1] The event was won by Thomas Curtis of the United States.

This was the first appearance of the event, which is one of 12 athletics events to have been held at every Summer Olympics. It was not a well-known event. Two top hurdlers, Stephen Chase of the United States and Godfrey Shaw of Great Britain, were not present. In Greece, Anastasios Andreou was thought to be unbeatable. Grantley Goulding of Great Britain apparently had the same view of himself. Alajos Szokolyi had won the Hungarian Olympic trials and was considered a strong contender there.^[2][3]

The competition consisted of two semifinals and a final. With seventeen competitors having entered, there were scheduled to be three or four semifinal heats: ultimately, only eight competitors started, meaning two heats were ultimately held.

The top two runners in each semifinal heat advanced to the four-man final.^[2][3][4]

There was no standing Olympic record before the first Games.

World record	Stephen Chase (USA)	15.4y[lower-alpha 1]	New York	21 September 1895[5]
Olympic record	New event	n/a	n/a	n/a

Each race set a new Olympic record. Grantley Goulding won the first semifinal in 18.4 seconds. Thomas Curtis won the second semifinal in 18.0 seconds. Curtis then won the final in 17.6 seconds to finish the Games with the Olympic record.

The precise times of the events are not recorded. The 110 metres hurdles semifinal round was the first event of the afternoon session on the second day, which began around "half past two". The final was the third event of the fifth day's afternoon.^[4]