Track and field

Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping,
and throwing skills.[1] The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running
track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping events. Track and field
is categorized under the umbrella sport of athletics, which also includes road
running, cross country running and racewalking.
The foot racing events, which include sprints, middle- and long-distance events,
racewalking, and hurdling, are won by the athlete who completes it in the least time.
The jumping and throwing events are won by those who achieve the greatest distance
or height. Regular jumping events include long jump, triple jump, high jump, and pole
vault, while the most common throwing events are shot put, javelin, discus,
and hammer. There are also "combined events" or "multi events", such as
the pentathlon consisting of five events, heptathlon consisting of seven events,
and decathlon consisting of ten events. In these, athletes participate in a combination of
track and field events. Most track and field events are individual sports with a single
victor; the most prominent team events are relay races, which typically feature teams of
four. Events are almost exclusively divided by gender, although both the men's and
women's competitions are usually held at the same venue. Recently, “mixed” relay
events have been introduced into meets, whereby two men and two women make up
the four-person team. If a race has too many people to run all at once, preliminary heats
will be run to narrow down the field of participants.
Track and field is one of the oldest sports. In ancient times, it was an event held in
conjunction with festivals and sports meets such as the Ancient Olympic Games in
Greece. In modern times, the two most prestigious international track and field
competitions are the athletics competition at the Olympic Games and the World
Athletics Championships. World Athletics, formerly known as the International
Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), is the international governing body for the
sport of athletics.
Records are kept of the best performances in specific events, at world, continental,
and national levels, right down to a personal level. However, if athletes are deemed to
have violated the event's rules or regulations, they are disqualified from the competition
and their marks are erased.
In the United States, the term track and field may refer to other athletics events, such
as cross country, the marathon, and road running, rather than strictly track-based
events.[2]

HISTORY
The sport of track and field has its roots in human prehistory. Track and field style
events are among the oldest of all sporting competitions, as running, jumping and
throwing are natural and universal forms of human physical expression. The first
recorded examples of organized track and field events at a sports festival are
the Ancient Olympic Games. At the first Games in 776 BC in Olympia, Greece, only one
event was contested: the stadion footrace.[3] The scope of the Games expanded in later
years to include further running competitions, but the introduction of the Ancient
Olympic pentathlon marked a step towards track and field as it is recognized today—it
comprised a five-event competition of the long jump, javelin throw, discus throw, stadion
footrace,[3] and wrestling.[4][5]
Track and field events were also present at the Panhellenic Games in Greece around
this period, and they spread to Rome in Italy around 200 BC.[6][7] After the period
of Classical antiquity (in which the sport was largely Greco-Roman influenced) new
track and field events began developing in parts of Northern Europe in the Middle Ages.
The stone put and weight throw competitions popular among Celtic societies in Ireland
and Scotland were precursors to the modern shot put and hammer throw events. One of
the last track and field events to develop was the pole vault, which stemmed from
competitions such as the Fierljeppen contests in the Northern European Lowlands in the
18th century.
Discrete modern track and field competitions, separate from general sporting festivals,
were first recorded in the 19th century. These were typically organised by educational
institutions, military organisations and sports clubs as competitions between rival
establishments.[8] Competitions in the English public schools were conceived as human
equivalents of horse racing, fox hunting and hare coursing, influenced by a Classics-rich
curriculum. The Royal Shrewsbury School Hunt is the oldest running club in the world,
with written records going back to 1831 and evidence that it was established by 1819.
[9]
The school organised Paper Chase races in which runners followed a trail of paper
shreds left by two "foxes";[9] even today RSSH runners are called "hounds" and a race
victory is a "kill".[10] The first definite record of Shrewsbury's (cross-country)
Annual Steeplechase is in 1834, making it the oldest running race of the modern era.
[9]
The school also lays claim to the oldest track and field meeting still in existence,
originating in the Second Spring Meeting first documented in 1840.[9] This featured a
series of throwing and jumping events with mock horse races including the Derby
Stakes, the Hurdle Race and the Trial Stakes. Runners were entered by "owners" and
named as though they were horses.[9] 13 miles (21 km) away and a decade later, the
first Wenlock Olympian Games were held at Much Wenlock racecourse.[11] Events at the
1851 Wenlock Games included a "half-mile foot race" (805 m) and a "leaping in
distance" competition.[12]
In 1865, Dr William Penny Brookes of Wenlock helped set up the National Olympian
Association, which held their first Olympian Games in 1866 at The Crystal Palace in
London.[12] This national event was a great success, attracting a crowd of over ten
thousand people.[12] In response, that same year the Amateur Athletic Club was formed
and held a championship for "gentlemen amateurs" in an attempt to reclaim the sport for
the educated elite.[12] Ultimately the "allcomers" ethos of the NOA won through and the
AAC was reconstituted as the Amateur Athletic Association in 1880, the first national
body for the sport of athletics. The AAA Championships, the de facto British national
championships despite being for England only, have been held annually since 3 July
1880 with breaks only during two world wars and 2006–2008.[13] The AAA was
effectively a global governing body in the early years of the sport, codifying its rules for
the first time.
Meanwhile, the United States began holding an annual national competition—the USA
Outdoor Track and Field Championships—first held in 1876 by the New York Athletic
Club.[14] The establishment of general sports governing bodies for the United States
(the Amateur Athletic Union in 1888) and France (the Union des sociétés françaises de
sports athlétiques in 1889) put the sport on a formal footing and meant that international
competitions became possible.
The establishment of the modern Olympic Games at the end of the 19th century marked
a new high for track and field. The Olympic athletics programme, comprising track and
field events plus a marathon race, contained many of the foremost sporting
competitions of the 1896 Summer Olympics. The Olympics also consolidated the use
of metric measurements in international track and field events, both for race distances
and for measuring jumps and throws. The Olympic athletics programme greatly
expanded over the next decades, and track and field contests remained among the
Games' most prominent. The Olympics was the elite competition for track and field, and
only amateur sportsmen could compete. Track and field continued to be a largely
amateur sport, as this rule was strictly enforced: Jim Thorpe was stripped of his track
and field medals from the 1912 Olympics after it was revealed that he had taken
expense money for playing baseball, violating Olympic amateurism rules, before the
1912 Games. His medals were reinstated 29 years after his death.[15]
That same year, the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) was established,
becoming the international governing body for track and field, and it enshrined
amateurism as one of its founding principles for the sport. The National Collegiate
Athletic Association held their first Men's Outdoor Track and Field Championship in
1921, making it one of the most prestigious competitions for students, and this was
soon followed by the introduction of track and field at the inaugural World Student
Games in 1923.[16] The first continental track and field competition was the 1919 South
American Championships, which was followed by the European Athletics
Championships in 1934.[17]
Up until the early 1920s, track and field had been almost exclusively a male-only
pursuit. Alice Milliat argued for the inclusion of women at the Olympics, but the
International Olympic Committee refused. She founded the International Women's
Sports Federation in 1921 and, alongside a growing women's sports movement in
Europe and North America, the group initiated of the Women's Olympiad (held annually
from 1921 to 1923). Working in conjunction with the English Women's Amateur Athletic
Association (WAAA), the Women's World Games was held four times between 1922
and 1934, as well as a Women's International and British Games in London in 1924.
These events ultimately led to the introduction of five track and field events for women
in the athletics at the 1928 Summer Olympics.[18] In China, women's track and field
events were being held in the 1920s, but were subject to criticism and disrespect from
audiences. National women's events were established in this period, with 1923 seeing
the First British Track & Field championships for women and the Amateur Athletic
Union (AAU) sponsoring the First American Track & Field championships for women.
Also in 1923, physical education advocate Zhang Ruizhen called for greater equality
and participation of women in Chinese track and field.[19] The rise of Kinue Hitomi and
her 1928 Olympic medal for Japan signified the growth of women's track and field in
East Asia.[20] More women's events were gradually introduced as years progressed
(although it was only towards the end of the century that the men's and women's
programmes approached parity of events). Marking an increasingly inclusive approach
to the sport, major track and field competitions for disabled athletes were first introduced
at the 1960 Summer Paralympics.
With the rise of numerous regional championships, as well as the growth in Olympic-
style multi-sport events (such as the Commonwealth Games and the Pan-American
Games), competitions between international track and field athletes became
widespread. From the 1960s onwards, the sport gained more exposure and commercial
appeal through television coverage and the increasing wealth of nations. After over half
a century of amateurism, the amateur status of the sport began to be displaced by
growing professionalism in the late 1970s.[8] As a result, the Amateur Athletic Union was
dissolved in the United States and it was replaced with a non-amateur body solely
focused on the sport of athletics: The Athletics Congress (later USA Track and Field).
[21]
The IAAF abandoned amateurism in 1982 and later removed all references to it from
its name by rebranding itself as the International Association of Athletics Federations.
[8]
While Western countries were limited to amateurs until the early 1980s, Soviet
Bloc countries always fielded state-funded athletes who trained full-time, putting
American and Western European athletes at a significant disadvantage.[22] 1983 saw the
establishment of the IAAF World Championships in Athletics—the first-ever global
competition just for athletics—which, with the Olympics, became one of track and field's
most prestigious competitions.
The profile of the sport reached a new high in the 1980s, with a number of athletes
becoming household names (such as Carl Lewis, Sergey Bubka, Sebastian Coe, Zola
Budd and Florence Griffith Joyner). Many world records were broken in this period, and
the added political element between competitors of the United States, East Germany,
and the Soviet Union, in reaction to the Cold War, only served to stoke the sport's
popularity. The increase in the commercial capacity of track and field was also met with
developments in the application of sports science, and there were many changes to
coaching methods, athlete's diet regimes, training facilities, and sports equipment. This
was also accompanied by an increase in the use of performance-enhancing drugs.
State-sponsored doping in 1970s and 1980s East Germany, China,[23] the Soviet Union,
[24]
and early 21st century Russia, as well as prominent individual cases such as those of
Olympic gold medallists Ben Johnson and Marion Jones, damaged the public image
and marketability of the sport.
From the 1990s onwards, track and field became increasingly more professional and
international, as the IAAF gained over two hundred member nations. The IAAF World
Championships in Athletics became a fully professional competition with the introduction
of prize money in 1997,[8] and in 1998 the IAAF Golden League—an annual series of
major track and field meetings in Europe—provided a higher level of economic incentive
in the form of a US$1 million jackpot. In 2010, the series was replaced by the more
lucrative Diamond League, a fourteen-meeting series held in Europe, Asia, North
America, and the Middle East—the first-ever worldwide annual series of track and field
meetings.

EVENTS
Track and field events are divided into three broad categories: track events, field events,
and combined events.[citation needed] The majority of athletes tend to specialize in just one
event (or event type) with the aim of perfecting their performances, although the aim of
combined events athletes is to become proficient in a number of disciplines. Track
events involve running on a track over specified distances, and—in the case of
the hurdling and steeplechase events—obstacles may be placed on the track. There are
also relay races in which teams of athletes run and pass on a baton to their team
members at the end of a certain distance.
There are two types of field events: jumps and throws. In jumping competitions, athletes
are judged on either the length or height of their jumps. The performances of jumping
events for distance are measured from a board or marker, and any athlete overstepping
this mark is judged to have fouled. In the jumps for height, an athlete must clear their
body over a crossbar without knocking the bar off the supporting standards. The
majority of jumping events are unaided, although athletes propel themselves vertically
with purpose-built sticks in the pole vault.
The throwing events involve hurling an implement (such as a heavyweight, javelin, or
discus) from a set point, with athletes being judged on the distance that the object is
thrown. Combined events involve the same group of athletes contesting a number of
different track and field events. Points are given for their performance in each event and
the athlete and/or team with the greatest points total at the end of all events is the
winner.

TRACK
Sprints[edit]
Main article: Sprint (running)

The finish of a women's 100 m race

Races over short distances, or sprints, are among the oldest running competitions. The
first 13 editions of the Ancient Olympic Games featured only one event, the stadion
race, which was a race from one end of the stadium to the other.[3] Sprinting events are
focused on athletes reaching and sustaining their quickest possible running speed.
Three sprinting events are currently held at the Olympics and outdoor World
Championships: the 100 metres, 200 metres, and 400 metres. These events have their
roots in races of imperial measurements that later changed to metric: the 100 m evolved
from the 100-yard dash,[26] the 200 m distances came from the furlong (or 1/8 of a mile),
[27]
and the 400 m was the successor to the 440 yard dash or quarter-mile race.[28]
At the professional level, sprinters begin the race by assuming a crouching position in
the starting blocks before leaning forward and gradually moving into an upright position
as the race progresses and momentum is gained.[29] Athletes remain in the same lane
on the running track throughout all sprinting events,[28] with the sole exception of the
400 m indoors. Races up to 100 m are largely focused upon acceleration to an athlete's
maximum speed.[29] All sprints beyond this distance increasingly incorporate an element
of endurance.[30] Human physiology dictates that a runner's near-top speed cannot be
maintained for more than thirty seconds or so because lactic acid builds up once leg
muscles begin to suffer oxygen deprivation.[28] Top speed can only be maintained for up
to 20 metres.[31]
The 60 metres is a common indoor event and indoor world championship event. Less-
common events include the 50 metres, 55 metres, 300 metres, and 500 metres, which
are run in some high school and collegiate competitions in the United States. The 150
metres, though rarely competed, has a star-studded history: Pietro Mennea set a world
best in 1983,[32] Olympic champions Michael Johnson and Donovan Bailey went head-
to-head over the distance in 1997,[33] and Usain Bolt improved Mennea's record in 2009.
Middle distance[edit]

Arne Andersson (left) and Gunder Hägg (right) broke a number of middle distance world
records in the 1940s.
Further information: Middle-distance running
The most common middle-distance track events are the 800 metres, 1500
metres and mile run, although the 3000 metres may also be classified as a middle-
distance event.[34] The 880 yard run, or half mile, was the forebear of the 800 m distance
and it has its roots in competitions in the United Kingdom in the 1830s.[35] The 1500 m
came about as a result of running three laps of a 500 m track, which was commonplace
in continental Europe in the 20th century.[36]
Runners start the race from a standing position along a curved starting line and after
hearing the starting pistol they head towards the innermost track to follow the quickest
route to the finish. In 800 m races athletes begin at a staggered starting point before the
turn in the track and they must remain in their lanes for the first 100 m of the race.
[37]
This rule was introduced to reduce the amount of physical jostling between runners in
the early stages of the race.[35] Physiologically, these middle-distance events demand
that athletes have good aerobic and anaerobic energy producing systems, and also that
they have strong endurance.[38]
The 1500 m and mile run events have historically been some of the most prestigious
track and field events. Swedish rivals Gunder Hägg and Arne Andersson broke each
other's 1500 m and mile world records on a number of occasions in the 1940s.[39][40] The
prominence of the distances were maintained by Roger Bannister, who (in 1954) was
the first to run the long-elusive four-minute mile,[41][42] and Jim Ryun's exploits served to
popularise interval training.[36] Races between British rivals Sebastian Coe, Steve
Ovett and Steve Cram characterised middle-distance running in the 1980s.[43] From the
1990s onwards, North Africans such as Noureddine Morceli of Algeria and Hicham El
Guerrouj of Morocco came to dominate the 1500 and mile events.[36]
Beyond the short distances of sprinting events, factors such as an athlete's reactions
and top speed becomes less important, while qualities such as pace, race tactics
and endurance become more so.
Long-distance[edit]

Kenenisa Bekele leading in a long-distance track event

Main article: Long-distance running
There are three common long-distance running events in track and field
competitions: 3000 metres, 5000 metres and 10,000 metres. The latter two races are
both Olympic and World Championship events outdoors, while the 3000 m is held at
the IAAF World Indoor Championships. The 5000 m and 10,000 m events have their
historical roots in the 3-mile and 6-mile races. The 3000 m was historically used as a
women's long-distance event, entering the World Championship programme in 1983
and Olympic programme in 1984, but this was abandoned in favour of a women's
5000 m event in 1995.[44] Marathons, while long-distance races, are typically run on
street courses, and often are run separately from other track and field events.
In terms of competition rules and physical demands, long-distance track races have
much in common with middle-distance races, except that pacing, stamina, and race
tactics become much greater factors in performances.[45][46] However, a number of
athletes have achieved success in both middle- and long-distance events,
including Saïd Aouita who set world records from 1500 m to 5000 m.[47] The use
of pace-setters in long-distance events is very common at the elite level, although they
are not present at championship level competitions as all qualified competitors want to
win.[46][48]
The long-distance track events gained popularity in the 1920s by the achievements of
the "Flying Finns", such as multiple Olympic champion Paavo Nurmi. The successes
of Emil Zátopek in the 1950s promoted intense interval training methods, but Ron
Clarke's world record-breaking feats established the importance of natural training and
even-paced running. The 1990s saw the rise of North and East African runners in long-
distance events. Kenyan and Ethiopian athletes, in particular, have since remained
dominant in these events.
Relay races[edit]
Main article: Relay race
Relay races are the only track and field event in which a team of runners directly
compete against other teams.[49] Typically, a team is made up of four runners of the
same sex. Each runner completes their specified distance (referred to as a leg) before
handing over a baton to a teammate, who then begins their leg upon receiving the
baton. There is usually a designated area where athletes must exchange the baton.
Teams may be disqualified if they fail to complete the change within the area, or if the
baton is dropped during the race. A team may also be disqualified if its runners are
deemed to have wilfully impeded other competitors.

Girls handing over the baton in a relay race in Leipzig in 1950

Relay races emerged in the United States in the 1880s as a variation on charity races
between firemen, who would hand a red pennant on to teammates every 300 yards.
There are two very common relay events: the 4×100 metres relay and the 4×400 metres
relay. Both events entered the Olympic programme at the 1912 Summer Games after a
one-off men's medley relay featured in 1908 Olympics.[50] The 4 × 100 m event is run
strictly within the same lane on the track, meaning that the team collectively runs one
complete circuit of the track. Teams in a 4 × 400 m event remain in their own lane until
the runner of the second leg passes the first bend, at which point runners can leave
their lanes and head towards the inner-most part of the circuit. For the second and third
baton change overs, teammates must align themselves in respect of their team position
– leading teams take the inner lanes while teammates of the slower teams must await
the baton on outer lanes.[49][51]
The Shuttle Hurdle Relay per Hurdling web page: In a shuttle hurdle relay, each of four
hurdlers on a team runs the opposite direction from the preceding runner. No batons are
used for this particular relay.
The IAAF keeps world records for five different types of track relays. As with 4×100 m
and 4×400 m events, all races comprise teams of four athletes running the same
distances, with the less commonly contested distances being
the 4×200 m, 4×800 m and 4×1500 m relays.[52] Other events include the distance
medley relay (comprising legs of 1200 m, 400 m, 800 m, and 1600 m), which is
frequently held in the United States, and a sprint relay, known as the Swedish medley
relay, which is popular in Scandinavia and was held at the IAAF World Youth
Championships in Athletics programme.[53] Relay events have significant participation in
the United States, where a number of large meetings (or relay carnivals) are focused
almost exclusively on relay events.
Hurdling
Races with hurdles as obstacles were first popularised in the 19th century in England.
[55]
The first known event, held in 1830, was a variation of the 100-yard dash that
included heavy wooden barriers as obstacles. A competition between the Oxford and
Cambridge Athletic Clubs in 1864 refined this, holding a 120-yard race (110 m) with ten
hurdles of 3-foot and 6 inches (1.06 m) in height (each placed 10 yards (9 m) apart),
with the first and final hurdles 15 yards from the start and finish, respectively. French
organisers adapted the race into metric (adding 28 cm) and the basics of this race, the
men's 110 metres hurdles, has remained largely unchanged.[56] The origin of the 400
metres hurdles also lies in Oxford, where (around 1860) a competition was held over
440 yards and twelve 1.06 m high wooden barriers were placed along the course. The
modern regulations stem from the 1900 Summer Olympics: the distance was fixed to
400 m while ten 3-foot (91.44 cm) hurdles were placed 35 m apart on the track, with the
first and final hurdles being 45 m and 40 m away from the start and finish, respectively.
[57]
Women's hurdles are slightly lower at 84 cm (2 ft 9 in) for the 100 m event and 76 cm
(2 ft 6 in) for the 400 m event.
By far the most common events are the 100 metres hurdles for women, 110 m hurdles
for men and 400 m hurdles for both sexes. The men's 110 m has been featured at every
modern Summer Olympics while the men's 400 m was introduced in the second edition
of the Games.[56][57] Women's initially competed in the 80 metres hurdles event, which
entered the Olympic programme in 1932. This was extended to the 100 m hurdles at the
1972 Olympics,[56] but it was not until 1984 that a women's 400 m hurdles event took
place at the Olympics (having been introduced at the 1983 World Championships in
Athletics the previous year).[57] Other distances and heights of hurdles, such as the 200
metres hurdles and low hurdles, were once common but are now held infrequently.
The 300 metres hurdles is run in some levels of American competition.
Outside of the hurdles events, the steeplechase race is the other track and field event
with obstacles. Just as the hurdling events, the steeplechase finds its origin in student
competition in Oxford, England. However, this event was born as a human variation on
the original steeplechase competition found in horse racing. A steeplechase event was
held on a track for the 1879 English championships and the 1900 Summer Olympics
featured men's 2500 m and 4000 m steeplechase races. The event was held over
various distances until the 1920 Summer Olympics marked the rise of the 3000 metres
steeplechase as the standard event.[58] The IAAF set the standards of the event in 1954,
and the event is held on a 400 m circuit that includes a water jump on each lap.
[59]
Despite the long history of men's steeplechase in track and field, the women's
steeplechase only gained World Championship status in 2005, with its first Olympic
appearance in 2008.
The roots of track and field, or athletics, may be traced back
to the first ancient Olympic Games, held in 776 B.C. in the
valley of Olympia on the southwestern coast of the Greek
peninsula.