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track and field

 
Dictionary: track and field   (trăk'ən-fēld') adj.
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n.

Athletic events performed on a running track and the field associated with it.

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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: athletics
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Variety of sport competitions held on a running track and on the adjacent field. It is the oldest form of organized sports, having been a part of the ancient Olympic Games from c. 776 BC to AD 393. Modern events include various sprint and middle- and long-distance races, relay races, hurdling, steeplechase, high jump, pole vault, long jump, triple jump, shot put, discus throw, hammer throw, javelin throw, decathlon, pentathlon, and heptathlon. Cross-country running, marathons, and speed walking, which are rarely held on a track, are usually considered adjuncts of athletics. Events are held indoors and outdoors, and records are kept separately; some events are modified or eliminated for indoor competition.

For more information on athletics, visit Britannica.com.

US History Encyclopedia: Track and Field
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Track and Field athletics in the United States had multiple origins in the early-to mid-nineteenth century. British models were most influential. Scottish immigrants formed Caledonian Clubs in many American cities, and through these the tradition of Highland Games (also called Caledonian Games) brought track and field competition to the East Coast through the mid-1870s. Boston, for example, held its first Highland Games in 1842. In 1849 English long-distance runners demonstrated their sport to large American crowds.

Another important thread, older and harder to trace, is the Native American running and games traditions. One of the first American runners to compel English athletes' notice was Louis "Deerfoot" Bennett, a Seneca Indian who ran in England in 1862, dressed for effect in wolfskin and a feathered headband.

Yet another venue for organized competition was county and state fairs.

As in England, social class distinguished the structures that contained and sponsored track and running events. Caledonian Club events tended to invite all comers, no matter what race or ethnicity. Other British imports, such as the races called "pedestrians," were often largely working-class events. One of the first American pedestrians was held in 1835 at the Union racetrack in New York. Runners competed to cover ten miles in less than an hour. (One out of nine entrants achieved this goal.) Another type of pedestrian was the "six day go as you please" staged in several cities in the mid-nineteenth century. These were endurance events characterized by betting and by the rough informality of that era's urban spectacles. One race in Boston in the mid-1880s was run indoors by contestants from a wide variety of social backgrounds who had coaches and stood to win some money. A final category was the women's walking contest, quite popular in the 1870s. Often lucrative for the winners, these marathon contests, involving thousands of quartermile track circuits per meet, disappeared in the 1880s and are barely remembered today. By the late-nineteenth century the other pedestrians had also shriveled because of widespread corruption and the increasing attraction of more elitist and "legitimate" competitions.

Collegiate and club track and running competitions eventually overwhelmed more populist events. For these athletes, amateur status was a badge of honor. In the 1880s and 1890s, the athletic club model caught on among American elites. These clubs varied from social clubs with fine athletic facilities to clubs primarily for amateur athletes, but in America's gilded age, most clubs developed membership policies defined by income and social prestige. The New York Athletic Club (NYAC) was founded in 1868, and the Boston Athletic Association in 1887. By the late nineteenth century, most American cities had amateur athletic clubs, and the international aspirations of the American clubs were captured in the first American-British meet held at Travers Island, New York, in June 1895, in which the NYAC hosted its London counterpart.

On the collegiate scene, perhaps due to their relative age and their links to elite preparatory schools with track programs and to the city athletic clubs, northeastern universities nurtured many outstanding amateur track and field athletes at the turn of the century. The growth of organized collegiate sports partly reflected middle-class concerns about the fate of rugged manliness in an urban, electrified world. The Intercollegiate Association of Amateur Athletics was founded in 1876. By the 1880s, track and field events encompassed the 100-and 220-yard sprints, the quarter-, half-, and mile runs, hurdles, the broad jump, long jump, pole vault, shot put, 56-pound throw, and hammer throw, and sometimes the half-mile walk. (The marathon would be an Olympic addition.)

In 1896 a fourteen-man team sponsored by the Boston Athletic Association traveled to Athens for the first modern Olympic Games. The young Americans won nine of the twelve track and field events. By the 1912 games, United States track athletes had put the Olympics on their calendars and continued their impressive record of victories. The remarkable Carlisle Indian School graduate, Jim Thorpe, won both the pentathlon and decathlon.

The 1912 team also included several African American members, as had the 1908 team. The development of American track and field has reflected the evolution of various groups' access to social competition in general. Into the early twentieth century, American white men dominated the track and field events sponsored and fostered by the white athletic clubs and the white-dominated colleges. Yet African Americans competed in track and field from its American beginnings, largely through venues that paralleled those of white male athletes. Most black track athletes, as in baseball and other sports, functioned in segregated settings. The "colored" YMCAs nurtured athletic skills and organizational knowledge. American blacks also founded urban athletic clubs to foster recreation and competition; in fact, like whites of various ethnic and class groupings, African Americans fully participated in the club movement of the late nineteenth century. Limited community resources hampered these clubs, and members usually had to use public facilities for their activities. Black colleges, founded after the Civil War, offered a crucial staging ground for black athletes. After initial hesitation to commit their scarce resources to athletics, by the 1890s college administrators were backing a varsity movement. More public resources might have come their way through the Second Morrill Act of 1890, except that southern white state legislators diverted funds intended for black land-grant colleges to white uses.

Even in those years, the outstanding competitive skills of individual black men occasionally emerged. A few black athletes were able to participate in white-controlled events like the Highland Games. A few black students attended white colleges and universities, sometimes only after being required to graduate from a black college. These included outstanding athletes like Amherst's W. T. S. Jackson, the University of Pennsylvania's J. B. Taylor, Howard Smith, and Dewey Rogers, and Harvard's N. B. Marshall and Ted Cable (a graduate of Andover Academy). Other venues for blacks to compete against whites included the military, where black units could field competitors against white units' teams. American meets and teams contained increasing numbers of black American world-class athletes, including of course Jesse Owens, whose winning performance offered an ironic commentary on the Third Reich's racial philosophy in the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games.

In the mid-1890s college women began testing their skill in track and field events. Vassar College held the first of forty-two consecutive women's field days in 1895. For thirty years, women track athletes strove against the physical educators' received wisdom, which echoed cultural repression of women's physical exertion on the grounds that women were incapable of extended exercise. In the early 1920s, track and field boomed as a sport for college women, then fell victim by the 1930s to social fears of the "mannish" and unnatural (read: "lesbian") female types who might thrive in sports so dependent on "masculine" strength and speed (rather than the grace and agility one could read into gymnastics, skating, and even tennis and golf, which had their own social cachet).

Colleges were not the only breeding ground for women (or men) track athletes. Though access to good tracks, coaches, and practice time made a difference in results, one could compete for relatively little money in events sponsored by the Amateur Athletic Union and thus qualify for distinction. While the blight on female track athletics hit colleges first, non-collegiate athletes continued to compete and draw audiences into the 1930s. There was room in public regard for Mildred "Babe" Didrikson, who gained celebrity in the 1931 nationals by breaking the world's record for the 80-meter hurdles and achieved Olympic distinction in 1932. (In the longer run, her blunt speech and avoidance of dresses seemed to confirm stereotypes of women athletes.) Didrikson and many other non-collegiate women athletes were sponsored by industrial leagues, part of the "welfare capitalism" movement of the 1920s.

As female participation in track and field became culturally complicated, black women emerged as the individuals able to withstand the stigma of speed, endurance, and strength to compete in national and international meets. Alice Coachman was the first black woman to win an Olympic gold medal in the high jump, in London in 1948. Wilma Rudolph won Americans' hearts with her Olympic performance in 1960, when she won three gold medals; and she was only one member of an Olympic women's squad dominated by black collegiate athletes. (The entire relay team was from Tennessee State University.) Since the 1960s a host of black American women athletes have starred on the world stage of Olympic competition, including Evelyn Ashford, Valerie Brisco-Hooks, Gail Devers, Florence Griffith Joyner, Jackie JoynerKersee, Marion Jones, and Wyomia Tyus.

Black men have matched black women's track and field brilliance in the last fifty years. Again, a partial list includes Bob Beamon, Leroy Burrell, Milt Campbell, Lee Evans, Carl Lewis, Michael Johnson, Edwin Moses, and Mike Powell. The bitter side of African American success is the continuing social and "scientific" conversation about whether there are physiological causes of black athletic domination. Besides linking to a long Euro-American history of slandering black Africans and their descendants as more animalistic and primitive than whites, this debate implies that blacks may have to work less hard and thus deserve less credit for their athletic achievements.

As with other sports, track and field's twentieth century has been characterized by both technical and technological developments contributing to progressively faster, longer, higher results. Technological improvements encompass the materials used in equipment, including shoes and clothing, as well as timing, starting, and measurement methods. There have also been illegitimate technological developments, notably the use of drugs, particularly anabolic steroids, to enhance physical development and performance.

Technical improvements include training regimes, nutritional knowledge, and research toward systematizing and enhancing the psychosocial aspects of training and competition.

The final major development has been the erosion of distinctions between amateur and professional athletic status. Endorsements and sponsorships from corporations and other organizations allow outstanding track athletes to enhance and extend their careers. Many other professional athletes may earn far more, but professionalization has contributed to the visibility and democratization of track and field.

Bibliography

Ashe, Arthur R., Jr. A Hard Road to Glory: A History of the African-American Athlete 1619–1918. Volume I. New York: Amistad, 1993.

Cahn, Susan K. Coming On Strong: Gender and Sexuality in Twentieth-Century Women's Sport. New York: Free Press, 1994.

Chalk, Ocania. Black College Sport. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1976.

Guttmann, Allen. Women's Sports: A History. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991.

McNab, Tom. The Complete Book of Trackand Field. New York: Exeter Books, 1980.

Rader, Benjamin G. American Sports: From the Age of Folk Games to the Age of Televised Sports. 3rd ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1996.

Riess, Steven A. City Games: The Evolution of American Urban Society and the Rise of Sports. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989.

Tricard, Louise Mead. American Women's Trackand Field: A History, 1895 through 1980. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1996.

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: track and field athletics
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track and field athletics, sports of foot racing, hurdling, jumping, vaulting, and throwing varied weights and objects. They are usually separated into two categories: track, the running and hurdling events; and field, the throwing, jumping, and vaulting events. "Meets" are traditionally conducted on an oval track that surrounds an infield for the field events; indoor meets may comprise all but a few of the field events.

Events

Track events include the 100-, 200-, 400-, 800-, 1,500-, 5,000-, and 10,000-meter runs; the marathon race (26 mi 385 yd/42.19 km); the 100- (women), 110- (men) and 400-meter hurdles; the 400- and 1,600-meter relays; the 3,000-meter steeplechase (men); and the 20,000- and 50,000-meter (men) walks. Such British-system equivalents as the 100-yd dash and the mile run may also be part of a meet. Field events include the shot put; the hammer throw; the discus throw; the javelin toss (less frequently); the high jump; the long jump; the triple jump (formerly the running hop, skip, and jump); and the pole vault. The ten-event decathlon is the major composite event for men, and the Olympic winner is traditionally acclaimed as the "world's greatest athlete." The seven-event heptathlon (formerly the five-event pentathlon) is the women's major composite event.

History

Track and field athletics dominated the ancient Greek athletic festivals, and were also popular in Rome, but declined in the Middle Ages. In England they were revived sporadically between the 12th and 19th cent.; the first college meet occurred in 1864 between Oxford and Cambridge universities.

Track and field athletics in the United States dates from the 1860s. The Intercollegiate Association of Amateur Athletes of America, the nation's first national athletic group, held the first collegiate races in 1873, and in 1888 the Amateur Athletic Union (which governed the sport for nearly a century) held its first championships. The Athletics Congress now regulates the sport in the United States; the International Amateur Athletics Federation (IAAF) sanctions international competition. Track and field has been the centerpiece of the summer Olympic games since their revival in 1896. International professional running, initiated in the 1970s, has had limited success.

Record-setting Achievements and Illegal Drugs

Continuous, and often astonishing, improvement has characterized the sport in the 20th cent. Performances once considered unattainable, such as the 4-minute mile (first achieved in 1954 by Roger Bannister, the 8-ft (2.44-m) high jump (achieved by Javier Sotomayor in 1993), and the 20-ft (6.1-m) pole vault (achieved in 1994 by Sergey Bubka) are especially well known. Since the 1970s, many have questioned whether some record-setting achievements have been produced with the aid of performance-enhancing drugs or other unsanctioned techniques. Testing of athletes has therefore become standard, and results have occasionally been nullified, as when Canada's Ben Johnson lost his world record and 1988 Olympic gold medal for the 100-m race after tests detected anabolic steroids in his system.

Bibliography

See R. L. Quercetani, A World History of Track and Field Athletics, 1864-1964 (1964); C. Nelson, Track and Field's Greatest Champions (1986).

 
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Wikipedia: Track and field athletics
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A women's 400 m hurdles race on a typical outdoor red urethane track in the Helsinki Olympic Stadium in Finland.
"Track & Field" redirects here. For the video game, see Track & Field (arcade game). For the record label, see The Track & Field Organisation.

Track and Field Athletics is a collection of sports events that involve running, throwing, jumping and walking. Organised athletics are traced back to the Ancient Olympic Games from 776 BC, and most modern events are conducted by the member clubs of the International Association of Athletics Federations. The athletics meeting forms the backbone of the modern Summer Olympics, and other leading international meetings include the IAAF World Championships and World Indoor Championships.

Contents

Etymology

The sport is commonly known as athletics in most of the world or track and field in the United States and Canada. The name "athletics" is derived from the Greek word "athlos", meaning "contest".

History

The original and only event at the first Olympics in 776 BC was a stadium-length foot race or "stade", run on a track.

There were several other "games" held in Europe in the classical era:

Other peoples, such as the Celts, Teutons and Goths who succeeded the Romans, enjoyed athletic contests. However, these were often related to combat training. In the Middle Ages the sons of noblemen would be trained in running, leaping and wrestling, in addition to riding, jousting and arms-training. Contests between rivals and friends may have been common on both official and unofficial grounds.

Annually, from 1796-1798, L'Olympiade de la République was held in revolutionary France, and is an early forerunner to the modern summer Olympic Games. The premier event of this competition was a footrace, but various ancient Greek disciplines were also on display. The 1796 Olympiade also marks the introduction of the metric system into sport.

In the 19th century the formal organization of the modern events accelerated - in France, Germany, and Great Britain in particular. This included the incorporation of regular sports and exercise into school regimes. The Royal Military College, Sandhurst has claimed to be the first to adopt this in 1812 and 1825, but without any supporting evidence. The earliest recorded meeting was organised at Shrewsbury, Shropshire in 1840 by the Royal Shrewsbury School Hunt. There are details of the meeting in a series of letters written 60 years later by C.T. Robinson, who was a pupil there from 1838 to 1841. The Royal Military Academy at Woolwich held an organised competition in 1849, but the first regular series of meetings was held by Exeter College, Oxford from 1850.[1]

Modern athletic events are usually organized around a 400 metre running track on which most of the running events take place. Field events (vaulting, jumping, and throwing) often take place on the infield, inside the track.

Athletics was included in the first modern Olympic Games in 1896 and has formed their backbone ever since. Women were first allowed to participate in track and field events in the 1928 Olympics.

An international governing body, the International Amateur Athletics Federation (IAAF), was founded in 1912; it adopted its current name, the International Association of Athletics Federations, in 2001. The IAAF established separate outdoor World Championships in 1983. There are a number of regional games as well, such as the European Championships, the Pan-American Games, and the Commonwealth Games. In addition there is a professional Golden League circuit, culminating in the IAAF World Athletics Final, and indoor championships such as the World Indoor Championships. The sport has a very high profile during major championships, especially the Olympics, but otherwise is less popular.

The AAU (Amateur Athletic Union) was the governing body in the United States until it collapsed under pressure from advancing professionalism in the late 1970s. A new governing body called The Athletics Congress (TAC) was formed. It was later renamed USA Track & Field (USATF or USA T&F). An additional, less structured organization, the Road Runners Club of America (RRCA), also exists in the United States to promote road racing.

In modern times, athletes can receive money for racing, putting an end to the so-called "amateurism" that existed before.

Indoor athletics

Typical "oval" track consisting of two semicircles joined by straight segments.

There are two seasons for track and field. There is an indoor season, run during the winter and an outdoor season, run during the spring. Most indoor tracks are 200 metres and consist of four to 8 lanes. There are also some 150 metre indoor tracks, and others as small as 120 metres have been used. Some "oversize tracks" (larger than 200 metres) are popular for American collegiate athletics despite the fact that they are not considered valid for setting indoor records. Often an indoor track will have banked turns to compensate for the tight radius of the turns. The banking can help prevent injuries to the athlete, while also promoting higher speeds.[citation needed]

In an indoor track meet athletes contest the same track events as at an outdoor meet, with the exception of the 100 m and 110 m/100 m hurdles (replaced by the 55 or 60 m sprint and 55 or 60 m hurdles at most levels, or the 55 m sprint and hurdles at the high school level), the 10,000 m run, 3,000 m steeplechase, 400 m hurdles. Indoor meets also have the addition of a 3,000 m run normally at both the collegiate and elite level, instead of the 10,000 m. The 5,000 m is the longest event commonly run indoors, although there are situations where longer distances have been raced. In the mid 20th century, there was a series of "duel" races on Madison Square Garden's indoor track, some of which featured two men racing a marathon (42.2 km). However, this is an extremely rare occurrence, for obvious reasons. In some occasions, there may also be a 500 m race instead of the open 400 m normally found outdoors, and in many college championship races indoors both are contested.

In field events, indoor meets only feature the high jump, pole vault, long jump, triple jump, and shot put (weight throw). Due to space limitations, these events take place on the infield, within the circumferential track. The longer throws of javelin, hammer and discus are added only for outdoor meets, as there is normally not enough space in an indoor stadium to house these events.

Other events unique to indoor meets (especially in North America) are the 300 m, 600m, 1000 m, and 35 lb (16 kg) weight throw. In some countries, notably Norway, standing long jump and standing high jump are also contested, even in the National Championships.

For multi-event athletes there is the Pentathlon for women (consisting of 60 m hurdles, high jump, shot put, long jump and 800 m) and heptathlon for men (consisting of 60 m, long jump, shot put, high jump, 60 m hurdles, pole vault and 1000 m) indoors.

Outdoor athletics

The outdoor track and field season usually begins in the spring and lasts through the summer. Most tracks are ovals of 400 metres in circumference. Modern "tartan tracks" or more recently "mondo tracks" are made with a rubberized surface; older tracks were cinder-covered. Tracks normally consist of 6-10 lanes (up to 12 lanes on the 'front' straight) and many include a steeplechase lane with a water pit on one of the turns. This steeplechase pit can be placed either inside or outside the track, making for a tighter turn or a wider turn. It is common that tracks will surround a playing field used for American football, association football (soccer), or lacrosse. This inner field is usually known as the infield and has a surface of either grass or artificial turf.

All field events can be contested on the infield. However the javelin, hammer and discus throws are sometimes contested on fields outside of the track stadium because they take up a large amount of space, the implements may damage the infield, and the implements could end up landing on the track. However, some infields are used specifically for these events, and for the javelin, an athlete may have a longer run-up by starting it on the other side of the track, and crossing when there are no athletes passing.

Events

There are other variations besides the ones listed below, but races of unusual length (e.g. 300 m) are run much less often. The unusual races are typically held during indoor season because of the shorter 200 m indoor track. With the exception of the mile run, races based on imperial distances are rarely run on the track anymore since most tracks have been converted from a quarter mile (402.3 m) to 400 m; almost all record keeping for imperial distances has been discontinued. However, the IAAF record book still includes the mile world record (currently held by Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco for men and Svetlana Masterkova of Russia for women) because of its worldwide historic significance.

Men and women do not compete against each other, although they may sometimes run in the same races due to time constraints at high school meets. Women generally run the same distances as men although hurdles and steeplechase barriers are lower and the weights of the shot, discus, javelin and hammer are less.

All Comers Track Meets

Main article: All Comers Track Meet

Track and Field is the most accessible sport for anyone to participate in. It only takes two people to have a race, or one can simply race a stopwatch. In events called All Comers Track Meets, anyone who wishes to participate is welcome. All comers meets are usually organized by communities, schools, or sports teams. Some sports teams also use all comers meets for fundraising. Most meets are low cost or free. All comers meets are fairly low-key and merely intended for gaining experience or just practicing for races. There is no exclusion on account of participants' lack of teams or equipment. While races are usually seeded based on the entrant's expected level of ability, the most elite of athletes can and do use these meets for training or practice.

Running and racewalking events

Running events conducted on a track (generally 400 metres, except indoors):

Sprints are events up to and including the 400 metres. Events commonly contested are:

Middle Distance Events are events longer than sprints and up to 3000 metres. Events commonly contested are:

Long Distance Events are events over 3000 metres. Events commonly contested are:

Hurdles events require the runner to run over evenly spaced barriers during the race. Events commonly contested are:

Relay races are events in which four athletes participate as a team, passing a metal baton in between. Events commonly contested are:

Some events, such as medley relays, are rarely run except at large relay carnivals. Typical medley relays include:

  • Sprint Medley Relay (SMR): the four legs are two 200 metre legs, 400 metres, 800 metres; or alternately two 100 metre legs, 200 metres, 400 metres
  • Distance Medley Relay (DMR): the four legs are 1200 metres, 400 metres, 800 metres, 1600 metres

Road Races are events conducted on open roads, sometimes finishing on a track. Events commonly contested are:

  • 10 km
  • 20 km
  • Half marathon(21.0975 km)
  • Marathon (42.195 km). The marathon is the only common road-racing distance run in major international athletics championships, such as the Olympics.

Racewalking may be contested on either the track or on open roads. Events commonly contested are:

  • 10 km
  • 20 km
  • 50 km

Field events

Throwing events

Jumping events

The following events also take place, but are uncommon:

  • Standing high jump
  • Standing long jump
  • Standing triple jump

Multiple-event competitions

Multiple event competitions include events from both the track (running) and field events.

Pentathlon: the outdoor Pentathlon includes the following five events:

  • Long Jump
  • Javelin
  • 200 metres
  • Discus
  • 1500 metres

The outdoor Pentathlon was a national championship event in the United States until 1978. It is still contested in many places throughout the world, but rarely as a championship event. The Pentathon was also contested in several of the early Olympic Games, notably in the 1912 Olympics which was won by Jim Thorpe, who also won the Decathlon. The event was modeled after the original Greek Olympic Games, in which the Pentathlon was the foremost contest. It consisted of a Long Jump, Javelin, a statia run of approximately 180 metres, Discus, and Greco-Roman style wrestling.

Pentathlon: the indoor Pentathlon includes the following five events:

  • High Hurdles (110 metres for men, 100 metres for women)
  • Shot Put
  • Long Jump
  • High Jump
  • Middle distance (1500 metres for men, 800 metres for women)

Heptathlon: the Heptathlon includes the following seven events:

Outdoors (usually only women):

  • 100 metre high hurdles
  • High Jump
  • Shot Put
  • 200 metres
  • Long Jump
  • Javelin Throw
  • 800 metres

Indoors (usually only men):

  • 60 metres
  • Long Jump
  • Shot Put
  • High Jump
  • 60 metres hurdles
  • Pole Vault
  • 1000 metres

Decathlon: the Decathlon includes the following ten events:

  • 100 metres
  • Long Jump
  • Shot Put
  • High Jump
  • 400 metres
  • 110 metre high hurdles
  • Discus
  • Pole Vault
  • Javelin
  • 1500 metres

Rules

Track events

The rules of track athletics or of track events in athletics as observed in most international athletics competitions are set by the Competition Rules of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF). The most recent complete set of rules is the 2009 rules that relate only to competitions in 2009.[3] Key rules of track events are those regarding starting, running and finishing.

Starting

The start of a race is marked by a white line 5 cm wide. In all races that are not run in lanes the start line must be curved, so that all the athletes start the same distance from the finish.[4] Starting blocks may be used for all races up to and including 400 m (including the first leg of the 4 x 200 m and 4 x 400 m) and may not be used for any other race. No part of the starting block may overlap the start line or extend into another lane.[5] All races must be started by the report of the starter's gun or approved starting apparatus fired upwards after he or she has ascertained that athletes are steady and in the correct starting position.[6] An athlete may not touch either the start line or the ground in front of it with his hands or his feet when on his marks.[7] At most international competitions the commands of the starter in his own language, in English or in French, shall, in races up to and including 400 m, be "On your marks" and "Set". When all athletes are "set", the gun must be fired, or an approved starting apparatus must be activated.[7] However, if the starter is not satisfied that all is ready to proceed, the athletes may be called out of the blocks and the process started over.

False start: An athlete, after assuming a final set position, may not commence his starting motion until after receiving the report of the gun, or approved starting apparatus. If, in the judgment of the starter or recallers, he does so any earlier, it is considered a false start. It is deemed a false start if, in the judgment of the starter an athlete fails to comply with the commands "on your marks" or "set" as appropriate after a reasonable time; or an athlete after the command "on your marks" disturbs other athletes in the race through sound or otherwise.[8] Any athlete making a false start must be warned.[9]

Running the race

In all races run in lanes, each athlete must keep within his allocated lane from start to finish. This also applies to any portion of a race run in lanes. If an athlete leaves the track or steps on the line demarking the track, he/she should be disqualified.[10] Also, any athlete who jostles or obstructs another athlete, in a way that impedes his progress, should be disqualified from that event.[11] However, if an athlete is pushed or forced by another person to run outside his lane, and if no material advantage is gained, the athlete should not be disqualified.

The finish

The finish of a race is marked by a white line 5 cm wide.[12] The athletes must be placed in the order in which any part of their torso ( as distinguished from the head, neck, arms, legs, hands or feet) reaches the vertical plane of the nearer edge of the finish line.[13]

Ties between different athletes are resolved as follows: In determining whether there has been a tie in any round for a qualifying position for the next round based on time, a judge (called the chief photo finish judge) must consider the actual time recorded by the athletes to 1/1000th of a second. If the judge decides that there has been a tie, the tying athletes must be placed in the next round or, if that is not practicable, lots must be drawn to determine who must be placed in the next round. In the case of a tie for first place in any final, the referee decides whether it is practicable to arrange for the athletes so tying to compete again. If he decides it is not, the result will stand. Ties in other placings remain.

Track and field on coinage

Running commemorative coin

Track and field events have been selected as a main motif in numerous collectors' coins. One of the recent samples is the €10 Greek Running commemorative coin, minted in 2003 to commemorate the 2004 Summer Olympics. In the obverse of the coin, a modern athlete figure appears in the foreground, shown in the starting position, while in the background two ancient runners are carved in a manner that gives the appearance of a coin that is "worn" by time. This scene originally appeared on a black-figure vase of the 6th century BC.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Oxford Companion to Sports and Games, ed. J.Arlott, O.U.P. (1975)
  2. ^ US high schools run the 1600 m instead of the 1500 m. This was to replace the mile with a more "logical" metric version. They also run the 3200 m as a replacement for the 2 mile race.
  3. ^ Incorporating changes approved by the IAAF Council throughout 2008- p5, 2009 Rule book, [1].
  4. ^ IAAF Rule 162.1, from Chapter 5, ‘Technical rules’, Section III on ‘Track events’.
  5. ^ IAAF Rule 161
  6. ^ IAAF Rule 161.2
  7. ^ a b IAAF Rule 161.3
  8. ^ IAAF Rule 161.6
  9. ^ IAAF Rule 161.7
  10. ^ IAAF Rule 163.3
  11. ^ IAAF Rule 163.2
  12. ^ IAAF Rule 164.1
  13. ^ IAAF Rule 164.3

External links

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Africa
North America
South America
Oceania
Europe
EAA – European Championships: Outdoor  · Indoor  · Team
Commonwealth Games · Universiade
v • d • e
Athletics events
Sprints
50 m · 55 m · 60 m · 100 m · 150 m · 200 m · 300 m · 400 m · 500 m
Hurdles
Middle distance
Long distance
Relays
Throws
Jumps
Combination
Uncommon field events
Road running  · Cross country running · Racewalking · Multiday race · Ultramarathon · Wheelchair racing
v • d • e
Unassisted human racing
using only the human body's own muscles
Hard surface running
Terrain running
Orienteering
Radio Orienteering
Other
List of racing forms



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Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
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