Athletics is a group of sporting events involving competitive running, jumping and throwing. The most common types of athletics competitions are track and field, road running, cross-country running, and race walking.
The results of racing events are decided by finishing position (or time, where measured), while the jumps and throws are won by the athlete who achieves the highest or furthest measurement from a series of attempts. The simplicity of the competitions and the lack of need for expensive equipment make athletics one of the most widely practiced 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.
The athletics meeting forms the backbone of the Summer Olympics and most other major multi-sport events. The foremost international athletics meeting is the World Athletics Championships, which incorporates track and field, marathon running and race walking. Other top level competitions in athletics include the World Athletics Indoor Championships, World Athletics Cross Country Championships and the World Athletics Road Running Championships. Athletes with a physical disability compete at the Summer Paralympics and the World Para Athletics Championships.
The most prestigious global season-long leagues in the sport are the Diamond League for track and field athletes, and the World Marathon Majors in marathon running.
The word athletics is derived from the Ancient Greek (, "combatant in public games") from (, "prize") or (, "competition").Athlete , Online Etymology Dictionary Initially, the term described athletic contests in general – i.e. sporting competition based primarily on human physical feats. In the 19th century, the term athletics acquired a more narrow definition in Europe and came to describe sports involving competitive running, walking, jumping and throwing. This definition continues to be prominent in the United Kingdom and the former British Empire. Related words in Germanic and Romance languages also have a similar meaning.
In many parts of North America, the term athletics is commonly used to refer to sports in general, reflecting its historical usage. As a result, the word is rarely used in this region to specifically describe the sport of athletics. Instead, the term track and field is predominantly used in the United States and Canada to refer to athletics competitions. These events include running, jumping, throwing, race walking, and marathon running, while cross-country running is generally considered a separate sport.
History
Ancient
Athletic contests in running, walking, jumping and throwing are among the oldest of all sports and their roots are prehistoric.Intro – What is Athletics? . IAAF. Retrieved on 2010-05-28. Athletics events were depicted in the Ancient Egyptian tombs in Saqqara, with illustrations of running at the Heb Sed festival and high jumping appearing in tombs from as early as of 2250 BC.Touny, Ahmed D. 84.85–90 History of Sports in Ancient Egypt . Retrieved on 2010-05-28. The Tailteann Games were an ancient Celtic festival in Ireland, founded , and the thirty-day meeting included running and stone-throwing among its sporting events.Diffley, Seán (2007-07-14). Tailteann Games' place in history going for a song . The Irish Independent. Retrieved on 2010-05-28. The original and only event at the first Olympics in 776 BC was a stadium-length running event known as the stadion. This later expanded to include throwing and jumping events within the ancient pentathlon. Athletics competitions also took place at other Panhellenic Games, which were founded later around 500 BC.The Ancient Olympic Games: Mythic Worship of Gods and Athletes . e-Legacies. Retrieved on 2010-05-28.
Modern era The Cotswold Olympic Games, a sports festival which emerged in 17th century England, featured athletics in the form of sledgehammer throwing contests.Origins of Robert Dover's Games . Olympick Games. Retrieved on 2010-05-28. Annually, from 1796 to 1798, L'Olympiade de la République was held in revolutionary France, and is an early forerunner to the modern Olympic Games. The premier event of this competition was a running event, but various ancient Greek disciplines were also on display. The 1796 Olympiade marked the introduction of the metric system into the sport.Alain Arvin-Bérod, Les enfants d'Olympie, Paris, CERF, 1996 (pp. 27–40)
Athletics competitions were held about 1812 at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and in 1840 at the Royal Shrewsbury School Hunt. The Royal Military Academy, Woolwich held an organised competition in 1849, and a regular series of closed meetings open only to undergraduates, was held by Exeter College, Oxford, from 1850.Oxford Companion to Sports and Games, ed. J.Arlott, O.U.P. (1975) The annual Wenlock Olympian Games, first held in 1850 in Wenlock, England, incorporated athletics events into its sports programme.The Modern Olympics: a Struggle for Survival, by David C. Young,Johns Hopkins University Press (1996)
The first modern athletics clubs in the world were founded at the University of Cambridge in 1857, and the University of Oxford in 1860; they began an annual varsity match in 1864. The London Athletic Club became the first independent athletic club in 1863. The first modern-style indoor athletics meetings were recorded shortly after in the 1860s, including a meet at Ashburnham Hall in London which featured four running events and a triple jump competition.Hoshino, Atsushi The Origin of Indoor Track and Field Meets . IAAF. Retrieved on 2011-04-09.European Athletics, Inside Track: Newsletter of European Athletics, Vol. 1/2011 (February 2011); Records could be broken as indoor athletics returns home , p. 4; accessed 6 March 2011
The Amateur Athletic Association (AAA) was established in England in 1880 as the first national body for the sport of athletics and began holding its own annual athletics competition – the AAA Championships. The United States also began holding an annual national competition – the USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships – first held in 1876 by the New York Athletic Club.The United States' National Championships In Track & Field Athletics: Introduction . Track and Field News. Retrieved on 2009-09-19. Athletics became codified and standardized via the English AAA and other general sports organisations in the late 19th century, such as the Amateur Athletic Union (founded in the US in 1888) and the (founded in France in 1889).
An athletics competition was included in the first modern Olympic Games in 1896 and it has been as one of the foremost competitions at the quadrennial multi-sport event ever since. Originally for men only, the 1928 Olympics saw the introduction of women's events in the athletics programme. Athletics is part of the Paralympic Games since the inaugural Games in 1960. Athletics has a very high-profile during major championships, especially the Olympics, even among casual sports fans, but otherwise is less popular though it maintains a dedicate fan base. Big city marathons such as New York, Boston, Chicago, London and Tokyo are major televised events in their respective cities, and often attract thousands of entrants and tens of thousands of spectators, for whom the event is usually free as it takes place on normal city roads. A small number of half marathons and road mile races, including the Great North Run, attract similar attention.
An international governing body, the International Amateur Athletics Federation (IAAF), was founded in 1912. It enforced amateur sport status on competitions during much of the 20th century. Professional competition continued at a low level, becoming increasingly more common as the century progressed. The International Track Association briefly formed a professional track and field circuit in the United States in the 1970s. Athletes used their increasing status to push for remuneration and the IAAF responded with the IAAF Golden Events series and the establishment an outdoor World Championships in 1983, including track and field, racewalking and a marathon event. In modern times, athletes can receive money for racing, putting an end to the so-called "amateurism" that existed before. The global body updated the name to the International Association of Athletics Federations in 2001, moving away from its amateur origins,April Henning & Jörg Krieger. "Dropping the Amateur": The International Association of Athletics Federations and the Turn Towards Professionalism . Sport History Review (January 2020). Retrieved 2020-04-12. before taking on its current name World Athletics in 2019.Mackay, Duncan (2019-09-26). IAAF officially agree to change name to World Athletics after debate . Inside the Games. Retrieved 2020-02-09.
The Comité International Sports des Sourds had been formed by 1922, to govern international deaf sports, including athletics.Para- Athletics – History , Athletics Canada
The first organized international competitions for athletes with a physical disability (not deaf) began in 1952, when the first international Stoke Mandeville Games were organized for World War II veterans.About the Sport , IPC Athletics This only included athletes in a wheelchair. This inspired the first Paralympic Games, held in 1960. Competitions would over time be expanded to include mainly athletes with amputation, cerebral palsy and visual impairment, in addition to wheelchair events.
Events
World Athletics, the sport's governing body, defines athletics in six disciplines: track and field, road running, race walking, cross country running, mountain running, and trail running. Mountain running was added in 2003 and trail running was added in 2015.
All forms of athletics are individual sports with the exception of relay races. However, athletes' performances are often tallied together by country at international championships, and, in the case of cross country and road races, finishing positions or times of the top athletes from a team may be combined to declare a team victor.
Several further forms of competitive running exist outside of the governance of World Athletics. The International Skyrunning Federation (ISF) governs high-altitude mountain running, defined as skyrunning, and is affiliated with the International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation rather than World Athletics."About ISF". International Skyrunning Federation. . Retrieved 2020-02-09. Competitive stair climbing events, usually hosted in skyscrapers, has two common names: vertical running (as described by the ISF) and tower running (as described by the Towerrunning World Association)."Vertical running – on top of the world". Vertical World Circuit. Retrieved 2020-02-09. Snowshoe running is a winter sport governed by the World Snowshoe Federation, which is similarly to cross country running but has athletes wearing snowshoes to race over deep snow on an obstacle-free course."About". World Snowshoe Federation. . Retrieved 2020-02-09. The International Association of Ultrarunners organises ultra running as an affiliate of World Athletics, but these long-distance forms of competition fit within World Athletics disciplines, albeit with additional distance."What is the IAU". International Association of Ultrarunners. . Retrieved 2020-02-09.