Athletics Explained: The Most Useful Information on the Queen of Sports

Athletics also known as track and field is an Olympic kind of sport including running disciplines, speed walking, jumping, multidiscipline competitions, and others. Athletics is said to be the queen of sport because it is one of the most massive kinds of sport and its disciplines see the greatest number of medal events being held at the Olympic Games. An athlete is the term that is used to denote a man or women dealing with one of several athletic disciplines. All the international events are governed by the International Association of Athletic Federations (IAAF) that unites all the national federations. It was created in 1912, and its current hear-quarters are in Monaco.

Basic Rules

A victory at any athletics competitions is awarded to an athlete or a team with the best results of final races or final attempts when it comes to other disciplines. As for running events, they are usually divided into the following stages:

1. Qualifications.
2. Quarter-Finals.
3. Semi-Finals.
4. Final.

A number of athletes who participate in a particular event is not stable; it depends on the regulations applied to govern this or that competition. At the same time, there is a strict rule that men and women may not participate in a common event. In other words, there are different track and field events for men and those for women.

Athletics Stadium

There are two main kinds of stadiums to host athletics competitions. They are open and enclosed.

Open stadiums. They are usually equipped with a football field. Such a stadium includes also a 400-meter oval track that, in its turn, is divided into eight or nine narrow tracks for separate athletes and separate areas for jumping disciplines. It is a common thing when throwing disciplines are held outside a stadium. This is done because of safety purposes.

Enclosed stadiums. These differ from those mentioned previously not only in their form. Their facilities also have peculiar features. Among others, the track is 200 meters long and it is divided into four-six separate tracks instead of eight or nine.

Athletics Kinds

As it has already been mentioned, there are a few variations of the track and field. All these variations can be roughly subdivided into the following groups, each of which has its own characteristic features.

Speed Walking

This is an athletic discipline that is similar to running and different from it at the same time. The main peculiarity of the given kind of sport is represented by the fact that athletes should have a constant contact between their foot and the ground. That is why the given discipline is also known as heel-and-toe walk. These competitions take place either on the track (10, 20, 30 or 50 kilometers) or on the highway (20 or 50 kilometers).

Running

It is one of the most ancient kinds of sport because it was an obligatory part of the first modern Olympic Games taken place in 1896. When it comes to the track and field, there are running competitions of the following types:

1. Sprint – 100, 200, and 400 meters (not very often, athletes can deal with 30-, 60-, and 300-meter distances).
2. Middle-distance running races – 800, 1500, and 3000 meters (there also distances of 600, 1000, and 1610 (that is a mile) meters.
3. Long-distance running races – 5000, 10000, and 42195 meters.
4. Steeplechase running – 2000 meters at an enclosed stadium and 3000 meters at an open one.
5. Hurdle running – 100 meters for women; 110 and 400 meters for men.
6. Relay – (4*100 meters or 4*400 meters).

Jumping

There can be competitions in vertical (high jumping and pole jumping) and horizontal (broad jumping and triple jumping) jumping. A victory in each of them is awarded to the athlete who manages to show the best result. Thus, let us discuss each discipline that creates the jumping kinds mentioned above:

1. High jumping is a very popular track and field discipline. Every jump in this discipline consists of a run, preparation for double taking-off, taking-off itself, going over the bar, and landing.
2. Pole vaulting is another discipline of vertical jumping. Here, an athlete has to go over the bar with the help of the pole. It is necessary not to floor this bar; otherwise, a fault is said to be made.
3. Broad jumping is a representative of horizontal jumping. This discipline requires athletes to have perfect sprint and leaping abilities.
4. Triple jumping consists of a run, three consecutive jumps, and a landing.

Throwing

This is a group of track and field disciplines, in which athletes should have and exercise “explosive” muscle efforts. The main objective in each discipline is to throw or put an implement as far as possible. These disciplines are as follows:

1. Grenade throwing – a grenade weighs 700 g for men and 500 g for women and midgets.
2. Shot putting – the implement weighs 7.26 kg for men and 4 kg for women.
3. Hammer throwing – the implement has the same weighting characteristics as in shot putting.
4. Javelin throwing – the implement dimensions for men are 800 g weight and 260-270 cm long; for women – 600 g weight and 220-230 cm long.
5. Discus throwing – the implement is of 2 kg for men and 1 kg for women.

Multidiscipline Competitions

It is an athletic discipline that unites various types of competitions in different kinds of track and field events. These competitions are held to identify the most versatile athlete. Here, there are the following competitions:

• decathlon (men) – 100-meter race, broad jump, shot putt, high jump, 400-meter race, 110-meter hurdles, discus throw, pole jump, javelin throw, and 1500-meter race;
• heptathlon (men) – 100-meter hurdles, high jump, shot putting, 200-meter race, broad jump, javelin throw, and 800-meter race;
• heptathlon (women) – 60-meter race, high jump, 60-meter hurdles, shot putt, high jump, pole jump, 1000-meter race;
• pentathlon (women) – 60-meter hurdles, high jump, shot putt, long jump, and 800-meter race.

International Competitions

There are a lot of international events that see athletic competitions. Thus, the list of the most prestigious ones looks as follows:

• the Olympic Games (every four years);
• World Championships in Athletics (every odd-numbered year);
• World Indoor Championships (every even-numbered year);
• European Athletics Championships (every two years);
• World U20 Championships (every two years) – only those athletes may participate who are not older than 19 years.

History

Athletics is considered to be an extremely ancient kind of sport, which is supported by numerous archeological findings (coins, vases, monuments, and so on). Among others, running is said to be the most ancient track and field discipline. By the way, athletes had to overcome a distance of one stadium – 192 meters. It is this the origin of the word “stadium” in its modern meaning.

The ancient Greeks called all the physical exercise as athletics that was usually divided into “light” and “heavy”. A group of “light” athletics was represented by exercise to train dexterity and durability (running, jumping, archery, swimming, and so on). At the same time, all the other exercises that trained power represented a group of “heavy” athletics.

Coroebus is said to be the first Olympic winner in athletics. It happened in 776 B.C., and it is this date that is considered to be the official emergence of the track and field. As for modern history, athletics dates back to a 2-kilometer race among students of Rugby College in the UK. In other words, athletics is the perfect example of how an activity that had initially been a way to physically train warriors turned into one of the most popular kinds of sport in the whole world.