Athletics at the 1956 Summer Olympics – Men's 400 metres hurdles

Men's 400 metres hurdles at the Games of the XVI Olympiad
Venue	Melbourne Cricket Ground
Date	November 23–24
Competitors	28 from 18 nations
Winning time	50.1
Medalists
Glenn Davis  United States Eddie Southern  United States Josh Culbreath  United States

Athletics at the 1956 Summer Olympics
Track events
100 m		men		women
200 m		men		women
400 m		men
800 m		men
1500 m		men
5000 m		men
10,000 m		men
80 m hurdles				women
110 m hurdles		men
400 m hurdles		men
3000 m steeplechase		men
4×100 m relay		men		women
4×400 m relay		men
Road events
Marathon		men
20 km walk		men
50 km walk		men
Field events
Long jump		men		women
Triple jump		men
High jump		men		women
Pole vault		men
Shot put		men		women
Discus throw		men		women
Javelin throw		men		women
Hammer throw		men
Combined events
Decathlon		men

The Men's 400 metres hurdles competition at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, Australia took place on November 23–24 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

Competition format

The men's 400m hurdles competition started with six heats, where the fastest two from each heat qualified to one of the two semifinals groups. The three fastest runners from each semifinals group advanced to the final.

Records

Prior to the competition, the existing World and Olympic records were as follows.

World record	Glenn Davis (USA)	49.5	Los Angeles, United States	June 29, 1956
Olympic record	Charles Moore (USA)	50.8	Helsinki, Finland	July 21, 1952

Results

Heats

Heat 1

Rank	Name	Country	Result
1	Glenn Davis	United States	51.3
2	David Lean	Australia	51.4
3	Keiji Ogushi	Japan	53.2
4	Ovidio de Jesús	Puerto Rico	54.0
5	Pablo Somblingo	23x15px Philippines	54.5

Heat 2

Rank	Name	Country	Result
1	Eddie Southern	United States	51.3
2	Harry Kane	Great Britain	51.8
3	Geoff Goodacre	Australia	52.5
4	Kalim Khawaja Ghani	Pakistan	55.1
5	Jagdev Singh	India	55.2

Heat 3

Rank	Name	Country	Result
1	Josh Culbreath	United States	50.9
2	Guy Cury	France	51.6
3	Jaime Aparicio	Colombia	52.0
4	Tom Farrell	Great Britain	52.7
5	Muhammad Yaqub	Pakistan	53.1
6	Tsai Cheng-Fu	Chinese Taipei	54.6

Heat 4

Rank	Name	Country	Result
1	Ross Parker	Australia	53.5
2	Ioannis Kambadelis	Greece	53.7
3	Amadeo Francis	Puerto Rico	54.3

Heat 5

Rank	Name	Country	Result
1	Yuriy Lituyev	Soviet Union	51.6
2	Gert Potgieter	23x15px South Africa	52.0
3	Ossi Mildh	Finland	52.1
4	Alexandre Yankoff	France	53.1
5	Marcel Lambrechts	Belgium	54.0

Heat 6

Rank	Name	Country	Result
1	Anatoly Yulin	Soviet Union	52.1
2	Ilie Savel	Romania	52.2
3	Bob Shaw	Great Britain	52.5
4	Ulisses dos Santos	Brazil	53.8

Semifinals

Group 1

Rank	Name	Country	Result
1	Eddie Southern	United States	50.1 OR
2	Glenn Davis	United States	50.7
3	Gert Potgieter	23x15px South Africa	51.3
4	Guy Cury	France	51.5
5	Anatoly Yulin	Soviet Union	51.7
6	Ross Parker	Australia	52.6

Group 2

Rank	Name	Country	Result
1	Josh Culbreath	United States	50.9
2	David Lean	Australia	51.4
3	Yuriy Lituyev	Soviet Union	51.8
4	Ilie Savel	Romania	52.0
5	Harry Kane	Great Britain	52.7
6	Ioannis Kambadelis	Greece	53.8

Final

Rank	Name	Country	Result
	Glenn Davis	United States	50.1
	Eddie Southern	United States	50.8
	Josh Culbreath	United States	51.6
4	Yuriy Lituyev	Soviet Union	51.7
5	David Lean	Australia	51.8
6	Gert Potgieter	23x15px South Africa	56.0