Portal:Sport of athletics
Introduction
Athletics is a group of sporting events that involves competitive running, jumping and throwing. The most common types of athletics competitions are track and field, road running, cross-country running, and racewalking.
The results of racing events are decided by finishing position (or time, where measured), while the jumps and throws are won by the athlete that achieves the highest or furthest measurement from a series of attempts. The simplicity of the competitions, and the lack of a need for expensive equipment, makes athletics one of the most common types of sports in the world. Athletics is mostly an individual sport, with the exception of relay races and competitions which combine athletes' performances for a team score, such as cross country.
Organized athletics are traced back to the ancient Olympic Games from 776 BC. The rules and format of the modern events in athletics were defined in Western Europe and North America in the 19th and early 20th century, and were then spread to other parts of the world. Most modern top level meetings are held under the auspices of World Athletics, the global governing body for the sport of athletics, or its member continental and national federations. (Full article...)
General images -
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A women's 400 m hurdles race at the 2007 Dutch Championships (from Track and field) -
The Roy Griak Invitational cross country meet at the University of Minnesota in September 2007 (from Cross country running) -
Runners at the 2010 European Cross Country Championships in Albufeira, Portugal (from Cross country running) -
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The Gordon Indoor Track sports an 80-yard sprint straight, and the track is 220 yards in length. (from Track and field) -
An ancient Greece vase from 600 BC depicting a running contest (from Track and field) -
The finish of a women's 100 m race (from Track and field) -
Naide Gomes in the jumping phase of the event (from Track and field) -
The 100 m final at the 2008 Summer Olympics (from Track and field) -
Men assuming the starting position for a sprint race (from Track and field) -
Men traversing the water jump in a steeplechase competition (from Track and field) -
A racewalker "flying" (entirely out of contact with the ground, a rule violation) (from Racewalking) -
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The New York State Federation Championship cross country meet in November 2010 (from Cross country running) -
The start of a typical cross country race, as an official fires a gun to signal the start (from Cross country running) -
A children's cross country competition in Čakovec, Croatia (from Cross country running) -
A javelin throw athlete (from Track and field) -
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Shaul Ladany (centre), in 1969 (from Racewalking) -
Edvin Wide, Ville Ritola, and Paavo Nurmi (on left) competing in the individual cross country race at the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris; due to the hot weather, which exceeded 40 °C (104 °F), only 15 out of 38 competitors finished the race. (from Cross country running) -
Ethiopian runner Kenenisa Bekele leading in a long-distance track event (from Track and field) -
American athlete Jim Thorpe lost his Olympic medals after taking expense money prior to the 1912 Summer Olympics for playing baseball, a violation of Olympic amateurism rules. (from Track and field) -
Oscar Pistorius running in the first round of the 400 m at the 2012 Summer Olympics (from Track and field) -
Marion Jones, after admitting to doping, lost her Olympic medals, was banned from the sport, and spent six months in jail. (from Track and field) -
A typical layout of an outdoor track and field stadium (from Track and field) -
Panathenaic Stadium in Athens, one of the first modern track and field stadiums (from Track and field) -
A graph of the world record progression in the men's 100 metres (from Track and field) -
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Carl Lewis, one of the athletes who helped increase track and field's profile (from Track and field) -
Girls handing over the baton in a relay race in Leipzig in 1950 (from Track and field) -
A child taking part in a local schools meeting in Cambodia (from Track and field) -
Arne Andersson (left) and Gunder Hägg (right) broke a number of middle distance world records in the 1940s. (from Track and field)
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Selected article
The modern Summer Olympic Games have been held every four years since the first Games in 1896 (except 1916 due to the First World War, 1940 and 1944 due to the Second World War, and 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic) and Olympic records are recognised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in each event. The athletics events, which take place at each Games, are divided into four groups: track events (including sprints, middle- and long-distance running, hurdling and relays), field events (including javelin, discus, hammer, pole vault, long and triple jumps), road events (such as walks and the marathon) and combined events (the heptathlon and the decathlon). Women compete in 23 athletics events during the Games, and men compete in 24; while 21 of the events are the same for both men and women, men exclusively compete in the 50 km walk, the women's combined event is the heptathlon while the men compete in the decathlon, and the short distance hurdles for women is contested over 100 m, ten metres shorter than the men's event.
Some Olympic records have been broken but later rescinded by the IOC. In 1988, Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson broke the Olympic and World record in the 100 metres sprint, but was subsequently disqualified after it was discovered that he had used anabolic steroids to enhance his performance. His record was expunged and the gold medal was instead awarded to original silver medalist American Carl Lewis. Hungarian athlete Róbert Fazekas broke the Olympic record in the men's discus in 2004 but was later stripped of both his gold medal and the record after it was deemed that he had "committed an anti-doping rule violation".
The longest standing modern Olympic athletics record is Bob Beamon's achievement in the men's long jump at the 1968 Summer Olympics. The jump, at 8.90 m (29 ft 2 in), also broke the existing world record by 55 cm (22 in), and stood as the world record for 23 years until Beamon's compatriot, Mike Powell, jumped farther in the 1991 World Championships in Athletics in Tokyo.
Note, only those events currently competed for and recognised by the IOC as Summer Olympic events are listed. (Full article...)
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Selected picture
Athlete birthdays
19 November:
- Luigi Beccali, Italian middle-distance runner
- Claudinei Quirino da Silva, Brazilian sprinter
- Meseret Defar, Ethiopian distance runner
- Gail Devers, American sprinter and hurdler
- Ivanka Khristova, Bulgarian shot putter
- Yipsi Moreno, Cuban hammer thrower
- Věra Pospíšilová-Cechlová, Czech discus thrower
- Dayron Robles, Cuban hurdler
- Reima Salonen, Finnish race walker
- Toby Stevenson, American pole vaulter
20 November:
- Naide Gomes, São Toméan-Portuguese long jumper
- Timothy Kitum, Kenyan middle-distance runner
- Richmond Landon, American high jumper
- Dora Ratjen, German high jumper
- Jean Shiley, American high jumper
- Aleksey Spiridonov, Soviet hammer thrower
21 November:
- Oleksandr Bagach, Ukrainian shot putter
- Sabine Busch, German sprinter and hurdler
- Sebastian Chmara, Polish decathlete
- Henri Deloge, French middle-distance runner
- Alberto Juantorena, Cuban 400/800 runner
- Anastasiya Kapachinskaya, Russian sprinter
- Werknesh Kidane, Ethiopian distance runner
- Ainārs Kovals, Latvian javelin thrower
- Nadine Müller, German discus thrower
- Niklas Wallenlind, Swedish hurdler
22 November:
- Roger Bambuck, French sprinter
- Dionísio Castro, Portuguese distance runner
- Domingos Castro, Portuguese distance runner
- Nikolai Kirov, Soviet middle-distance runner
- Katrin Krabbe, German sprinter
- Francis Obikwelu, Nigerian-Portuguese sprinter
- Irina Privalova, Russian sprinter and hurdler
- Yaroslav Rybakov, Russian high jumper
- Nataliya Tobias, Ukrainian middle-distance runner
23 November:
- Rodion Gataullin, Russian pole vaulter
- Svetlana Krachevskaya, Soviet shot putter
- Nam Sung-yong, Korean distance runner
- Asafa Powell, Jamaican sprinter
- Delos Thurber, American high jumper
- Terrence Trammell, American hurdler
24 November:
- Eamonn Coghlan, Irish middle- and long-distance runner
- Dejen Gebremeskel, Ethiopian distance runner
- Carmelita Jeter, American sprinter
- Gisela Mauermayer, German discus thrower
- Sándor Rozsnyói, Hungarian steeplechase runner
- Ryan Whiting, American shot putter
25 November:
- Lillian Copeland, American discus and javelin thrower
- Yoel García, Cuban triple jumper
- Lalonde Gordon, Trinidadian sprinter
- DeHart Hubbard, American long jumper and sprinter
- Christos Papanikolaou, Greek pole vaulter
- Gerhard Sperling, German race walker
Related portals
More did you know
- ... that 1985 NCAA hurdling champion Thomas Wilcher won the Michigan High School Athletic Association team track & field championship three consecutive times, both as an athlete and a coach?
- ... that Charlie Fonville broke a 14-year-old shot put world record by almost twelve inches at the 1948 Kansas Relays but was not allowed to stay with the other athletes because he was African-American?
- ... that the Peachtree Road Race, held annually on July 4 (U.S. Independence Day) in Atlanta, Georgia, is the world's largest 10 kilometer road race with 55,000 runners participating in 2007?
- ... that Patrick Ivuti's photo finish victory in the 2007 Chicago Marathon, one of the five major marathons, was his first marathon victory?
| Archive |
Selected biography
Lasse Artturi Virén (born 22 July 1949) is a Finnish former long-distance runner, winner of four gold medals at the 1972 and 1976 Summer Olympics. Virén recaptured the image of the "Flying Finns" promoted by runners like Hannes Kolehmainen, Paavo Nurmi and Ville Ritola in the 1920s. He was elected Finnish Sportsman of the Year in 1972 and 1976 and later became a politician and a member of Finland's parliament in 1999–2007 and 2010–2011. (Full article...)
| More selected biographies |
Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that Femke Bol won the women's 400 metres and 400 metres hurdles at the 2022 European Athletics Championships in an unprecedented double victory?
- ... that Femke Bol won the women's 400 metres hurdles at the 2024 European Athletics Championships in a championship record of 52.49 seconds?
- ... that the championship record was broken three times in the mixed 4 × 400 metres relay at the 2024 World Athletics Relays?
- ... that at the 2022 British Athletics Championships, Daryll Neita became the first woman since 2010 to win both the 100- and 200-metre events?
- ... that the men's 100 metres event at the 2023 British Athletics Championships was run in heavy rain?
- ... that Mokulubete Makatisi placed eighth at the 2022 Commonwealth Games women's marathon despite running in new shoes that she had received on the eve of the race?
- ... that at the 2022 British Indoor Athletics Championships, Lorraine Ugen equalled the championship long jump record?
World records
Topics
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Records in athletics | |||||||||||
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Athletics by country | ||
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Annual awards in athletics and track and field | ||
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Athletics events
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Athletics competitions
From the first edition at the 1896 Summer Games, athletics has been considered the "queen" of the Olympics. Today, there are several other athletics championships organized at global and continental levels. Athletics also serves as the main focus of many multi-sport events such as the World University Games, Mediterranean Games, and Pan American Games. The following is a list of prominent athletics competitions.
| Event | 1st edition | Kind of competition | Can participate |
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| Olympic Games | 1896 | World games |  Worldwide
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| World Championships | 1983 | World championships | |
| World Indoor Championships | 1985 | ||
| European Championships | 1934 | Continental championships | .svg){kind=small} Europe
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| European Indoor Championships | 1966 | ||
| South American Championships | 1919 | .svg){kind=small} South America
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| Asian Championships | 1973 | .svg){kind=small} Asia
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| African Championships | 1979 | .svg){kind=small} Africa
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| Ocenian Championships | 1990 | .svg){kind=small} Oceania
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Federations
- Internationals
International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF)
European Athletics Association (EAA)
Confederation of African Athletics (CAA)
Asian Athletics Association (AAA)
North American, Central American and Caribbean Athletic Association
CONSUDATLE
Oceania Athletics Association (OAA)
- Nationals
Australia: Athletics Australia (AA)
Brazil: Brazilian Athletics Confederation (CBAt)
Canada: Athletics Canada (AC)
Czech: Czech Athletics Federation (ČAS)
France: Fédération française d'athlétisme (FFA)
Germany: German Athletics Association (DLV)
Italy: Italian Athletics Federation (FIDAL)
Jamaica: Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA)
Japan: Japan Association of Athletics Federations (JAAF)
Kenya: Athletics Kenya (AK)
China: Chinese Athletic Association
Norway: Norwegian Athletics Association
Romania: Romanian Athletics Federation
Spain: Royal Spanish Athletics Federation (RFEA)
Great Britain: UK Athletics (UKA)
United States: USA Track & Field (USATF)
- Others
Wales: Welsh Athletics (WA)
England: Amateur Athletic Association of England (AAA)
Scotland: Scottishathletics
Athletic Association of Small States of Europe (AASSE)
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