Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone’s six world records and outright dominance may have redefined the way the world looks at the 400m hurdles race. The sheer ease with which athletes like her and the reigning World Champion, Femke Bol, cross the 30-inch high hurdles makes their wins look like a cakewalk. But what if we tell you the difficulty level might rise soon?

Well, as per American Olympian Kim Batten’s December 23 Facebook post, she is now leading a campaign to raise the height of the women’s 400-meter hurdles. “Today I am officially launching the ‘Raise the Hurdles’ campaign to increase the height of the women’s 400 hurdles from 30 inches to 33 inches,” she wrote. Batten’s announcement isn’t something that comes out of the blue. Per her, it’s a topic that has long been debated in the track world.

“This has long been a debate in the track and field community, but never has it been more evident of the need than the last few years with the recent performances and progressions in the event across the board, and dominated by the phenomenal current World Record Holder Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. But THE TIME IS NOW to scale into this challenge and opportunity,” she stated, urging that this was the right time to get cracking.

Batten further informed that the campaign will float its petition around the start of 2026, while she urged the athletic community to keep an eye out for the signing in the future. And of course, when a former Olympic silver medalist and world record holder in the women’s 400m hurdles puts forth a point, it’s bound to make an impact. However, it’s also hard to deny the statistical point behind this.

The women’s 400m hurdles are currently six inches lower than the men’s hurdle height. Also, the world record for the women’s 400m hurdles has been lowered in small steps for many years. In total, the record was broken 24 times over the course of nearly 50 years, starting with a time of 56.51 seconds in 1974. Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone alone has broken it six times consecutively since 2021, most recently at the 2024 Paris Olympics, where she set a new record of 50.37 seconds.

However, while Batten has officially launched the campaign now, she isn’t the first one to float a conversation around the height change.

Coe had teased the height change post Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone’s Paris mark

Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone’s Paris performance had left the track world stunned, to say the least. So much so that Michael Johnson, speaking on BBC Sport, had said that she might be the first woman to dip under the 50-second barrier. But World Athletics President Sebastian Coe had shared a different take on this.

Back in August 2024, Coe had hinted that the height of the hurdles might be reviewed. “There’s probably a case now for looking at the height of the hurdles because these guys don’t really look like they are breaking their form very much – that’s a mixture of good hurdling and probably the height,” he said, per the Telegraph.

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Coe had also remarked that he had spoken to a few hurdles who seemed open to the idea, “The innovation teams will be looking at all sorts of things. It’s very much a personal view, I’ve spoken to a couple of 400-metre hurdlers, and they think that actually, it’s probably something we might want to look at.”

Well, if such a decision is made in the future, the 400m women’s hurdle athletes would have to up their game. For now, Kim Batten’s mission is just to make the hurdles three inches taller. But if it gets implemented, athletes would have to break down old barriers with their incredible talent and match up to the scale.