Sword to Shot Put: 10 Olympic Sports You've Never Thought About

Standard Hurdles

Height: .914 meters (just under 3 feet, used in events longer than 110 meters)

Weight: 22 pounds

On television, these hurdles seem like mere annoyances for runners, but up close, they're three-foot tall barriers designed to be a huge pain in the ass to anyone who isn't trained to leap over them. Try jumping over the back of your neighbor’s Great Dane at full speed. Then do it ten times in a row for a quarter of a mile. That’s what racing hurdles is like. And these aren’t even the tallest hurdles used in the Olympics.