Portal:Sport of athletics

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Welcome to THE ATHLETICS PORTAL

Introduction

A copy of the Ancient Greek statue Discobolus, portraying a discus thrower

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...)

General images - load new batch

The following are images from various sport of athletics-related articles on Wikipedia.

Selected article

Polish double Olympic champion Tomasz Majewski

The shot put is a track and field event involving "putting" (throwing) a heavy spherical ball—the shot—as far as possible. For men, the sport has been a part of the modern Olympics since their revival (1896), and women's competition began in 1948. (Full article...)

Section 'Types of shots' not found
More selected articles

Selected picture

Athlete birthdays

Previous

25 March:

26 March:

27 March:

28 March:

Upcoming

29 March:

30 March:

31 March:

Related portals

More did you know

Archive

Selected biography

Tyson Gay (born August 9, 1982) is a retired American track and field sprinter who competed in the 100 and 200 meters. His 100 m personal best of 9.69 seconds is the American record and makes him tied for the second fastest athlete over 100 m ever, along with Yohan Blake of Jamaica.

Gay has won medals in many major international competitions, which includes 3 gold medals in the 100 m, 200 m and 4 × 100 m relay at the 2007 Osaka World Championships. This made him the second man to win all three events at the same World Championships, after Maurice Greene (Usain Bolt duplicated the feat two years later). Gay is a four-time U.S. champion in the 100 m.

At the 2008 Olympic Trials, he ran a wind assisted 9.68 seconds in the 100 m. Days later, he suffered a severe hamstring injury in the 200 m trials and did not win any medals at the Beijing Olympics. He clocked 9.71 seconds to win the 100 m silver medal in the 2009 World Championships — it is the fastest non-winning time in the history of the 100 m.

In July 2013, it was announced that Gay had tested positive for a banned substance; he subsequently withdrew from consideration for the World Championships in Moscow. The United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) suspended him until June 23, 2014, and stripped him of his silver medal in the 4 × 100 m relay at the 2012 Summer Olympics.

Gay is a two-time winner of the Jesse Owens Award, was the 2007 IAAF World Athlete of the Year, won Best Track and Field Athlete for Track & Field News in 2007 and for ESPY Award in 2008 and 2011. He has also achieved multiple Men's season's best performances in the 100 m and 200 m. (Full article...)

More selected biographies

Did you know (auto-generated) - load new batch

World records

World records as of 20 November 2022
Event Men Record Women Record
100 m Jamaica Usain Bolt 9.58 United States Florence Griffith Joyner 10.49
200 m Jamaica Usain Bolt 19.19 United States Florence Griffith Joyner 21.34
400 m South Africa Wayde van Niekerk 43.03 East Germany Marita Koch 47.60
800 m Kenya David Rudisha 1:40.91 Czechoslovakia Jarmila Kratochvílová 1:53.28
1500 m Morocco Hicham El Guerrouj 3:26.00 Ethiopia Genzebe Dibaba 3:50.07
3000 m Kenya Daniel Komen 7:20.67 China Wang Junxia 8:06.11
5000 m Uganda Joshua Cheptegei 12:35.36 Ethiopia Letesenbet Gidey 14:06.62
10,000 m Uganda Joshua Cheptegei 26:11.00 Ethiopia Letesenbet Gidey 29:01.03
Half marathon Uganda Jacob Kiplimo 57:31 Ethiopia Letesenbet Gidey 1:02:52
Marathon Kenya Eliud Kipchoge 2:01:39 Kenya Brigid Kosgei 2:14:04
3000 m steeplechase Qatar Saif Saaeed Shaheen 7:53.63 Kenya Beatrice Chepkoech 8:44.32
110 / 100 m hurdles United States Aries Merritt 12.80 Nigeria Tobi Amusan 12.12
400 m hurdles Norway Karsten Warholm 45.94 United States Sydney McLaughlin 50.68
High jump Cuba Javier Sotomayor 2.45 m Bulgaria Stefka Kostadinova 2.09 m
Pole vault Sweden Armand Duplantis 6.21 m Russia Yelena Isinbayeva 5.06 m
Long jump United States Mike Powell 8.95 m Soviet Union Galina Chistyakova 7.52 m
Triple jump United Kingdom Jonathan Edwards 18.29 m Venezuela Yulimar Rojas 15.74 m
Shot put United States Ryan Crouser 23.37 m Soviet Union Natalya Lisovskaya 22.63 m
Discus throw East Germany Jürgen Schult 74.08 m East Germany Gabriele Reinsch 76.80 m
Hammer throw Soviet Union Yuriy Sedykh 86.74 m Poland Anita Włodarczyk 82.98 m
Javelin throw Czech Republic Jan Železný 98.48 m Czech Republic Barbora Špotáková 72.28 m
Decathlon/Heptathlon France Kevin Mayer 9126 pts. United States Jackie Joyner-Kersee 7291 pts.
20 km racewalk Russia Vladimir Kanaykin 1:17:16 China Liu Hong 1:24:38
50 km racewalk France Yohann Diniz 3:32:33 Lindsay Pelas
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

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
Nationals
Others

Categories

Category puzzle
Category puzzle
Select [►] to view subcategories

WikiProjects

Associated Wikimedia

The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:

Sources

More portals