World Athletics president Seb Coe says theres a case for looking at raising the barriers in an event where the world record continues to fall

Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone has raised the bar in the womens 400m hurdles, but World Athletics may be about to do the same when it comes to the height of the barriers in the event.

On Thursday night (August 9) the American broke her own world record, sensationally lowering her mark of 50.65 to 50.37. It is the sixth time she has set new standards and her current best would have come close to qualifying for the womens 400m final in Paris. In the post-event press conference, she even suggested that breaking the 50-second barrier could be an achievable ambition.

It is an event that has shot forward in recent years and World Athletics president Sebastian Coe has suggested that now may be the time to consider raising the height of those barriers.

The hurdles are set at 91.4cm in the mens event, with the women having to clear 76.2cm, and Coe said: Theres probably a case now for looking at the height of the hurdles because these guys dont really look like they are breaking their form very much. Thats a mixture of good hurdling and probably the height.

The innovation teams will be looking at all sorts of things. Its very much a personal view, Ive spoken to a couple of 400m hurdlers and they think that, actually, its probably something we might want to look at.

Something that will definitely come under review is the repechage stage that has been introduced by the International Olympic Committee for the 2024 Games. In the events from 200m-1500m, as well as the hurdles, non-automatic qualifiers in the opening stage have been given another chance to progress.

It has provided some great moments, such as French athlete Anais Bourgoin being roared to victory by a huge home crowd. In other cases, however, athletes such as US hurdler Freddie Crittenden have used the system to buy themselves more time to recover from injury, deliberately underperforming at the first stage safe in the knowledge that there is another chance to compete.

The system does not feature at World Athletics events, including next years World Championships in Tokyo. It will come under review by the global governing body, however, and Coe says the feedback he has received so far has been largely positive.

These are cursory observations and nothing more, he says. The broadcasters have quite liked it, the athletes themselves have liked it because theyve had another chance, obviously, of qualifying.

The fans that I have spoken to have all said its pretty positive and they like the fact that youve got more stuff happening, particularly on the track. I think there will be things well want to look at and adjust, maybe the number of people that were putting into the repechage, and how theyre coming out of it. Clearly, well want to talk to the athletes.

It was something the IOC will keen for us to look at and Im always open to innovation. We said well review it, which we will. Im sure therell be some counter veiling views there but , on very cursory observation, I think theres a lot of it that seemed to work for me.

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