Athletics at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Men's 400 metres hurdles

The Men's 400 metres hurdles competition at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, United Kingdom took place on 3–6 August at the Olympic Stadium.

Contents

• Competition format
• Schedule
• Records
• Round 1
• Heat 6
• Semifinals
• Heat 3
• References

In the qualifying round, local favorite Dai Greene ran the fastest ever opening round race in the third heat, only to see that mark passed by three athletes in the following heat, led by an eased up Javier Culson. The slowest time qualifier was Kenneth Medwood in 49.78, though Stanislav Melnykov managed to get into the semis automatically with a 50.13 in the slow fifth heat.

With only two automatic qualifiers going to the final from each heat, the first semi-final stacked three former World Champions into one race. Less than a month before his 35th birthday, Félix Sánchez, the 2001 and 2003 World Champion showed he was still in the game, running a season best 47.76. Jehue Gordon upset the form setting the Trinidad and Tobago national record 47.96 in second, leaving 2007 and 2009 World Champion Kerron Clement in 3rd and 2011 World Champion Dai Greene in 4th to hope to qualify on time. The second semi was dominated by world leader Javier Culson and defending champion Angelo Taylor. In the third semi, American trials champion Michael Tinsley and Leford Green separated from the rest of the field. After a nervous wait Clement and Greene made the final on time.

In the final, Taylor, Culson and Sanchez led the way, arriving at the 8th hurdle about even. Taylor took the hurdle awkwardly and started losing ground. While Culson looked to struggle, Sanchez powered away down the stretch for the win, in exactly the same time as his 2004 victory. Tinsley came back from a couple steps back to pass Culson over the last hurdle for the silver, with Greene also trying to make a stretch run to finish fourth.

This was the second ever Olympic medal in Athletics, and the third gold medal overall for the Dominican Republic, the first being Sanchez' in 2004.

In repeating as Olympic champion non-consecutively, Sánchez joined a rare club including Paavo Nurmi, Volodymyr Holubnychy, Heike Drechsler, Nina Romashkova, Edwin Moses (caused by the boycott) and Angelo Taylor. Both Moses and Taylor were in this same event. Ulrike Meyfarth did it remarkably 12 years apart. Ezekiel Kemboi completed such a double the day before and Meseret Defar would complete one four days later.