Portal:Sport of athletics
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Portal maintenance status: (June 2018)
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Event | 1st edition | Kind of competition | Can participate |
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Olympic Games | 1896 | World games | Worldwide |
World Championships | 1983 | World championships | |
World Indoor Championships | 1985 | ||
European Championships | 1934 | Continental championships | Europe |
European Indoor Championships | 1966 | ||
South American Championships | 1919 | South America | |
Asian Championships | 1973 | Asia | |
African Championships | 1979 | Africa | |
Ocenian Championships | 1990 | Oceania |
Introduction
Athletics is a group of sporting events that involves competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking. 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 - load new batch
- Image 1Men traversing the water jump in a steeplechase competition (from Track and field)
- Image 5Oscar Pistorius running in the first round of the 400 m at the 2012 Summer Olympics (from Track and field)
- Image 6Marion Jones, after admitting to doping, lost her Olympic medals, was banned from the sport, and spent six months in jail. (from Track and field)
- Image 7Anna Giordano Bruno releases the pole after clearing the bar in pole vault (from Track and field)
- Image 9Panathenaic Stadium in Athens, one of the first modern track and field stadiums (from Track and field)
- Image 10A racewalker "flying" (entirely out of contact with the ground, a rule violation) (from Racewalking)
- Image 12Men assuming the starting position for a sprint race (from Track and field)
- Image 13Edvin 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)
- Image 14Ethiopian runner Kenenisa Bekele leading in a long-distance track event (from Track and field)
- Image 17Runners at the 2010 European Cross Country Championships in Albufeira, Portugal (from Cross country running)
- Image 19Yury Shayunou spinning with the hammer within the circle in hammer throw (from Track and field)
- Image 20A woman attempting to high jump while using the Fosbury Flop technique (from Track and field)
- Image 23The start of a typical cross country race, as an official fires a gun to signal the start (from Cross country running)
- Image 26American 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)
- Image 27The Roy Griak Invitational cross country meet at the University of Minnesota in September 2007 (from Cross country running)
- Image 29Arne Andersson (left) and Gunder Hägg (right) broke a number of middle distance world records in the 1940s. (from Track and field)
- Image 31The New York State Federation Championship cross country meet in November 2010 (from Cross country running)
- Image 33Carl Lewis, one of the athletes who helped increase track and field's profile (from Track and field)
- Image 34The Gordon Indoor Track sports an 80-yard sprint straight, and the track is 220 yards in length. (from Track and field)
- Image 35A typical layout of an outdoor track and field stadium (from Track and field)
Selected article
The javelin throw is a track and field event where the javelin, a spear about 2.5 m (8 ft 2 in) in length, is thrown as far as possible. The javelin thrower gains momentum by running within a predetermined area. Javelin throwing is an event of both the men's decathlon and the women's heptathlon. (Full article...) The javelin throw was added to the Ancient Olympic Games as part of the pentathlon in 708 BC. It included two events, one for distance and the other for accuracy in hitting a target. The javelin was thrown with the aid of a thong (ankyle in Greek) that was wound around the middle of the shaft. Athletes held the javelin by the ankyle, and when they released the shaft, the unwinding of the thong gave the javelin a spiral trajectory.
Throwing javelin-like poles into targets was revived in Germany and Sweden in the early 1870s. In Sweden, these poles developed into the modern javelin, and throwing them for distance became a common event there and in Finland in the 1880s. The rules continued to evolve over the next decades; originally, javelins were thrown with no run-up, and holding them by the grip at the center of gravity was not always mandatory. Limited run-ups were introduced in the late 1890s, and soon developed into the modern unlimited run-up.[1]: 435–436
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Selected picture
Athlete birthdays
27 May:
- Yenew Alamirew, Ethiopian distance runner
- José Luiz Barbosa, Brazilian middle-distance runner
- Don Finlay, British hurdler
- Lon Spurrier, American middle-distance runner
- Dink Templeton, American coach
- Christa Vahlensieck, German distance runner
28 May:
- Bill Baillie, New Zealand distance runner
- Mike Musyoki, Kenyan distance runner
- João Carlos de Oliveira, Brazilian triple jumper
- Derval O'Rourke, Irish hurdler
- Jim Thorpe, American decathlete
29 May:
- Frank Baumgartl, German steeplechase runner
- Nataliya Dobrynska, Ukrainian heptathlete
- Ralph Metcalfe, American sprinter
- Zhu Jianhua, Chinese high jumper
30 May:
- Wyndham Halswelle, British sprinter
- Margaret Okayo, Kenyan distance runner
- Kyle Vander-Kuyp, Australian hurdler
31 May:
- Anatoliy Bondarchuk, Soviet hammer thrower and coach
- Stéphane Caristan, French hurdler
- John Godina, American shot putter
- Gabriele Hinzmann, German discus thrower
- Tapio Kantanen, Finnish steeplechase runner
- Karin Melis Mey, South African-Turkish long jumper
- Joachim Olsen, Danish shot putter
- Karl-Hans Riehm, German hammer thrower
- Aleksey Zagorniy, Russian hammer thrower
1 June:
- Hasna Benhassi, Moroccan middle-distance runner
- Antonietta Di Martino, Italian high jumper
- Werner Günthör, Swiss shot putter
- Mihaela Loghin, Romanian shot putter
- Moses Masai, Kenyan distance runner
- Lorraine Moller, New Zealand distance runner
- David Neville, American sprinter
- Olga Nazarova, Soviet sprinter
- Brian Oldfield, American shot putter
- Yarisley Silva, Cuban pole vaulter
2 June:
- Olga Bondarenko, Soviet distance runner
- Cliff Cushman, American hurdler
- Hec Dyer, American sprinter
- Volodymyr Holubnychy, Soviet race walker
- Joe McCluskey, American steeplechase runner
- Remigija Nazarovienė, Lithuanian heptathlete
- Mark Plaatjes, South African-American distance runner
- Natalia Rodríguez, Spanish middle-distance runner
Related portals
More did you know
- ... that Amane Gobena is the first Ethiopian runner to win the Osaka Ladies Marathon?
- ... that Oprah Winfrey completed the America's Finest City Half Marathon in 1993, running under a pseudonym and accompanied by a bodyguard, a trainer, and a video crew?
- ... that Sharon Cherop fell over at the Toronto Waterfront Marathon but got back up and ran the fastest marathon ever by a woman in Canada?
- ... that Kenyan athlete Paul Malakwen Kosgei became the World Half Marathon Champion in 2002 despite having never competed in a half marathon before?
- ... that A. K. M. Miraj Uddin set a Pakistani national record in the pole vault by clearing 12 feet 2 inches (3.71 m) with a bamboo pole instead of a carbon-fiber pole?
Archive |
Selected biography
Usain St. Leo Bolt OJ CD OLY (/ˈjuːseɪn/; born 21 August 1986) is a retired Jamaican sprinter, widely considered to be the greatest sprinter of all time. He is the world record holder in the 100 metres, 200 metres, and 4 × 100 metres relay.
An eight-time Olympic gold medallist, Bolt is the only sprinter to win Olympic 100 m and 200 m titles at three consecutive Olympics (2008, 2012, and 2016). He also won two 4 × 100 relay gold medals. He gained worldwide fame for his double sprint victory in world record times at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, which made him the first person to hold both records since fully automatic time became mandatory.
An eleven-time World Champion, he won consecutive World Championship 100 m, 200 m and 4 × 100 metres relay gold medals from 2009 to 2015, with the exception of a 100 m false start in 2011. He is the most successful male athlete of the World Championships. Bolt is the first athlete to win four World Championship titles in the 200 m and is one of the most successful in the 100 m with three titles, being the first person to run sub-9.7s and sub-9.6s.
Bolt improved upon his second 100 m world record of 9.69 with 9.58 seconds in 2009 – the biggest improvement since the start of electronic timing. He has twice broken the 200 metres world record, setting 19.30 in 2008 and 19.19 in 2009. He has helped Jamaica to three 4 × 100 metres relay world records, with the current record being 36.84 seconds set in 2012. Bolt's most successful event is the 200 m, with three Olympic and four World titles. The 2008 Olympics was his international debut over 100 m; he had earlier won numerous 200 m medals (including 2007 World Championship silver) and held the world under-20 and world under-18 records for the event until being surpassed by Erriyon Knighton in 2021. (Full article...)
More selected biographies |
Did you know (auto-generated) - load new batch
- ... that German runner Alica Schmidt, who is running in the Women's 4 × 400 metres relay at the 2020 Summer Olympics, has won multiple European junior relay medals?
- ... that when the Oakland Athletics promoted Bill McNulty to the major leagues, they needed forest rangers to find him?
- ... that for the first time this century, this year's British Athletics Championships were not broadcast on live television?
- ... that the men's 100 metres event at the 2023 British Athletics Championships was run in heavy rain?
- ... 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 Marthe Yankurije, who dropped out of school during her fourth year of secondary school, competed at the 2020 Summer Olympics?
- ... that in the 1932 baseball game in which pitcher Eddie Rommel won his last game, he pitched 17 innings in relief, an American League record?
- ... that the women's race at today's New York City Marathon will feature two of the medalists from this year's Olympic marathon?
World records
Topics
Athletics events
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Athletics competitions
It's from the first edition (1896 Summer Olympics), that Athletics has been considered the "Queen" of the Olympics. Since then there have been a series of competitions organized at world level, than at the continental level. Furthermore, the Athletics is the main sport of nearly all multi-sport events such as Universiade, Mediterranean Games or Pan American Games. The following list refers to the main Athletics competitions that take place in the world.
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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Sources
- Jukola, Martti (1935). Huippu-urheilun historia (in Finnish). Werner Söderström Osakeyhtiö.