Track and field athletics

Athletics
Highest governing body	World Athletics
Characteristics
Mixed gender	Yes
Type	Outdoor or indoor
Presence
Olympic	Present since inaugural 1896 Olympics
Paralympic	Present since inaugural 1960 Paralympics

Track and field is part of the sport of athletics. Athletics is a collection of sport events that includes running, jumping and throwing. Track and field events take place in a sports stadium, either on the running track, or on the field inside the running track. These tracks are generally made up of synthetic rubber – rubber particles bound with latex or polyurethane.^[1] Other athletics events that are not track and field, include cross country running, road running, marathon running, and race-walking - these events take place outside a sports stadium.

Athletics is a very common sporting event over the world. Athletics is a combination of different sports, generally running, jumping and throwing events. Running events include marathons, hurdle races, long distance and short-distance events. Some jumping events are high jump, long jump, triple jump and pole vault. Throwing events involve javelin throw, discus throw, hammer throw and shot put.

Long jump at Berlin, 2009.
Discus throw at Barcelona.
Pole vault event at Birmingham.
200 meters race at Helsinki.

There are also events that combine parts of running, jumping, and throwing. One of these is the decathlon, which includes two short-distance races, a mile run, a hurdles race, javelin, discus, shot-put, high jump and pole vault.

All participants are timed or have a distance measured and this is their result. Participants train hard for an event and always aim to better their results.

Athletics is a sport that people take part in all over the world. It is a sport that is most common between young children up to younger adults. Athletics can be played for enjoyment, but it can also be a competitive sport. Athletics is also an event in the Olympic games.

Track And Field Athletics Media

A Greek vase from 500 BC depicting a running contest
An early model of hurdling at the Detroit Athletic Club in 1888
American athlete Jim Thorpe lost his Olympic medals having taken expense money for playing baseball, violating Olympic amateurism rules, before the 1912 Games.
Carl Lewis was among the athletes who helped increase track and field's profile.
The finish of a women's 100 m race
Arne Andersson (left) and Gunder Hägg (right) broke a number of middle distance world records in the 1940s.
Kenenisa Bekele leading in a long-distance track event
Girls handing over the baton in a relay race in Leipzig in 1950
A women's 400 m hurdles race at the 2007 Dutch Championships
Men traversing the water jump in a steeplechase competition
Olga Rypakova performing a triple jump in 2012