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...)
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The European 10,000m Cup is an annual 10,000 metres race for European athletes which was first held in 1997. The competition is organised by the European Athletics Association and first began as the European 10000 Metres Challenge (European 10,000m Challenge till 2005 edition), after the event was removed from the European Cup programme. The competition has roots in the Iberian 10,000 metres Championships – a competition between Spanish and Portuguese athletes that was held between 1991 and 1996 – and the first five editions of the European 10000 Metres Challenge were held in the Iberian Peninsula. The event was first held under its current title in 2005. From 2018, the event has been held as the climax of the Night of 10k PB's event at Parliament Hill, London. (Full article...)
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Athlete birthdays
9 June:
- Niki Bakoyianni, Greek high jumper
- Al Cantello, American javelin thrower
- Jean Galfione, French pole vaulter
- Bobby Kerr, Canadian sprinter
- Faina Melnik, Soviet discus thrower
10 June:
- Laimutė Baikauskaitė, Soviet middle-distance runner
- Damian Kallabis, German steeplechase runner
- Burglinde Pollak, German pentathlete
- Vilmos Varjú, Hungarian shot putter
- Andrey Yepishin, Russian sprinter
11 June:
- Sebastian Bayer, German long jumper
- Jacques Freitag, South African high jumper
- Kim Gallagher, American middle-distance runner
- Karl Hein, German hammer thrower
- Vera Komisova, Soviet hurdler
- Christophe Lemaitre, French sprinter
- Yekaterina Podkopayeva, Soviet middle-distance runner
- Yuriy Sedykh, Soviet hammer thrower
- Reiko Tosa, Japanese distance runner
12 June:
- Ajayi Agbebaku, Nigerian triple jumper
- Ray Barbuti, American sprinter
- Ron Freeman, American sprinter
- Fernand Gonder, French pole vaulter
- Ibrahim Jeilan, Ethiopian distance runner
- Julius Kariuki, Kenyan steeplechase runner
- Inger Miller, American sprinter
- Jérôme Romain, Dominican triple jumper
- Gwen Torrence, American sprinter
- Mamo Wolde, Ethiopian any-distance runner
13 June:
- Kenenisa Bekele, Ethiopian distance runner
- Will Claye, American triple jumper
- Michel Jazy, French middle- and long-distance runner
- Joseph Keter, Kenyan steeplechase runner
- Svetlana Krivelyova, Russian shot putter
- Dallas Long, American shot putter
- Romain Mesnil, French pole vaulter
- Paavo Nurmi, Finnish middle- and long-distance runner
- Rudolf Povarnitsyn, Soviet high jumper
- Lennart Strand, Swedish middle-distance runner
- Venelina Veneva, Bulgarian high jumper
14 June:
- Erick Barrondo, Guatemalan race walker
- Trevor Barry, Bahamian high jumper
- Tonie Campbell, American hurdler
- Arthur Duffey, American sprinter
- Ivan Gubijan, Yugoslavian hammer thrower
- Danny McFarlane, Jamaican sprinter and hurdler
- Richard Stebbins, American sprinter
15 June:
- Marina Azyabina, Russian hurdler
- Vilma Bardauskienė, Soviet long jumper
- Yuliya Nesterenko, Belarusian sprinter
- Peter Norman, Australian sprinter
- Igor Paklin, Soviet high jumper
- Zdeňka Šilhavá, Czechoslovakian discus thrower
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- ... 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?
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Selected biography
Alfred Oerter Jr. (/ˈɔːrtər/; September 19, 1936 – October 1, 2007) was an American athlete and a four-time Olympic Champion in the discus throw. He was the first athlete to win a gold medal in the same individual event in four consecutive Olympic Games. Oerter is an inductee of the IAAF Hall of Fame. (Full article...)
Oerter began his Olympic career at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne. He was not considered the favorite but he felt a rush during the competition and he unleashed a throw of 184 feet 22 inches (56.64 m)—which, at the time, was a career best. The throw was good enough to win the competition by more than 5 inches (130 mm).
In 1957, it seemed that Oerter's career would be over at the age of 20 when he was nearly killed in an automobile accident. He recovered in time to compete at the 1960 Summer Olympics at Rome, where he was the slight favorite over teammate Rink Babka, who was the world record holder.
Babka was in the lead for the first four of the six rounds. He gave Oerter advice before his fifth throw; Oerter threw his discus 194 feet 2 inches (59.18 m), setting an Olympic record. Babka settled for the silver medal when he was not able to beat Oerter's throw.
During the early 1960s, Oerter continued to have success and set his first world record in 1962. In the process, he was the first to break 200 feet in the discus. He was considered a heavy favorite to win a third gold medal at Tokyo in 1964.
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World records
Event | Men | Record | Women | Record |
---|---|---|---|---|
100 m | Usain Bolt | 9.58 | Florence Griffith Joyner | 10.49 |
200 m | Usain Bolt | 19.19 | Florence Griffith Joyner | 21.34 |
400 m | Wayde van Niekerk | 43.03 | Marita Koch | 47.60 |
800 m | David Rudisha | 1:40.91 | Jarmila Kratochvílová | 1:53.28 |
1500 m | Hicham El Guerrouj | 3:26.00 | Faith Kipyegon | 3:49.11 |
5000 m | Joshua Cheptegei | 12:35.36 | Gudaf Tsegay | 14:00.21 |
10,000 m | Joshua Cheptegei | 26:11.00 | Letesenbet Gidey | 29:01.03 |
Marathon | Kelvin Kiptum | 2:00:35 | Brigid Kosgei | 2:14:04 |
3000 m steeplechase | Lamecha Girma | 7:52.11 | Beatrice Chepkoech | 8:44.32 |
110 / 100 m hurdles | Aries Merritt | 12.80 | Tobi Amusan | 12.12 |
400 m hurdles | Karsten Warholm | 45.94 | Sydney McLaughlin | 50.68 |
High jump | Javier Sotomayor | 2.45 m | Stefka Kostadinova | 2.09 m |
Pole vault | Armand Duplantis | 6.23 m | Yelena Isinbayeva | 5.06 m |
Long jump | Mike Powell | 8.95 m | Galina Chistyakova | 7.52 m |
Triple jump | Jonathan Edwards | 18.29 m | Yulimar Rojas | 15.74 m |
Shot put | Ryan Crouser | 23.56 m | Natalya Lisovskaya | 22.63 m |
Discus throw | Jürgen Schult | 74.08 m | Gabriele Reinsch | 76.80 m |
Hammer throw | Yuriy Sedykh | 86.74 m | Anita Włodarczyk | 82.98 m |
Javelin throw | Jan Železný | 98.48 m | Barbora Špotáková | 72.28 m |
Decathlon/Heptathlon | Kevin Mayer | 9126 pts. | Jackie Joyner-Kersee | 7291 pts. |
20 km racewalk | Yusuke Suzuki | 1:16:36 | Yang Jiayu | 1:23:49 |
4×100 m relay | Jamaica | 36.84 | United States | 40.82 |
4×400 m relay | United States | 2:54.29 | Soviet Union | 3:15.17 |
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.
Event | 1st edition | Kind of competition | Can participate |
---|---|---|---|
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 |
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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