Portal:Sport of athletics
Introduction
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...)
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Race Walking Record (abbreviated RWR) is a nonprofit magazine about the sport of race walking, and walking events, primarily aimed at a UK audience. The magazine was founded in London in 1941 by Alf McSweeney in order to keep athletes serving as soldiers in World War II informed about their sport back home. Alf McSweeney was president of the Race Walking Association at the time, and a printer by trade.
Race Walking was a successful Olympic sport for Great Britain at that time. After producing the first issue, the magazine soon became popular. It continues to be produced each month after more than 800 issues in over seventy years. (Full article...)
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Athlete birthdays
20 May:
- Lynn Davies, British long jumper
- Šárka Kašpárková, Czech triple jumper
- Pat Leahy, Irish jumper
- Nils Schumann, German middle-distance runner
- Jiřina Svobodová, Czech pole vaulter
21 May:
- Brigita Bukovec, Slovenian hurdler
- Inese Jaunzeme, Soviet javelin thrower
- Carl Johnson, American long jumper
- Tatyana Ledovskaya, Soviet hurdler
- Tinus Osendarp, Dutch sprinter
- Anna Rogowska, Polish pole vaulter
- Eder Sánchez, Mexican race walker
22 May:
- Kurt Bendlin, German decathlete
- Jaouad Gharib, Moroccan distance runner
- Frantz Kruger, South African-Finnish discus thrower
- Frank Nelson, American pole vaulter
23 May:
- José Telles da Conceição, Brazilian high jumper
- Nina Dumbadze, Soviet discus thrower
- Carlos Mercenario, Mexican race walker
- Nina Otkalenko, Soviet middle-distance runner
- Xu Demei, Chinese javelin thrower
24 May:
- Maryvonne Dupureur, French middle-distance runner
- Lázár Lovász, Hungarian hammer thrower
- Liz McColgan, British distance runner
- Chūhei Nambu, Japanese long- and triple jumper
- Irena Szewińska, Polish sprinter
25 May:
- Stefano Baldini, Italian distance runner
- Stefan Holm, Swedish high jumper
- Ezekiel Kemboi, Kenyan steeplechase runner
- Romuald Klim, Soviet hammer thrower
- Massa Lind, Swedish hammer thrower
- Natallia Mikhnevich, Belarusian shot putter
- Irina Simagina, Russian long jumper
- Giuseppe Tosi, Italian discus thrower
- Arthur Wint, Jamaican 400/800 runner
26 May:
- Arto Bryggare, Finnish hurdler
- Zola Budd, British-South African runner
- Dani Samuels, Australian discus thrower
- Michel Tornéus, Swedish long jumper
- Romas Ubartas, Lithuanian discus thrower
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Selected biography
Dwain Anthony Chambers (born 5 April 1978) is a British track sprinter. He has won international medals at World and European levels and is one of the fastest European sprinters in the history of athletics. His primary event is the 100 metres, with a best of 9.97 seconds, which ranks him fifth on the British all-time list. He is the Former European record holder for the 60 metres and 4×100 metres relay events with 6.42 seconds and 37.73 s respectively.
Chambers ran a 100 m world junior record of 10.06 s in 1997 and became the youngest ever world medallist in the event at the 1999 World Championships, taking the bronze. On his Olympic début at the 2000 Sydney Olympics he was the best European performer in fourth place. He broke the 10-second barrier twice at the 2001 World Championships. In 2003 he received a two-year athletics ban after testing positive for THG, a banned performance-enhancing drug and was stripped of the 100 m European title and record he achieved in 2002.
Chambers returned to competition in June 2006 and won gold with his teammates in the 4×100 m at the 2006 European Championships. He tried other sports, including a spell with the Hamburg Sea Devils of the NFL Europa league and a rugby league trial with Castleford. Sprinting success came over 60 m when he won silver at the 2008 World Indoor Championships, gold at the 2009 European Indoors, and became world champion at the 2010 World Indoor Championships.
Due to his doping ban, he was barred from the Olympics, Commonwealth Games, and much of the European racing circuit, from 2006 to 2012. The Court of Arbitration for Sport overturned his lifetime Olympic ban, deeming it non-compliant with the World Anti-Doping Code, and he competed in the 2012 London Olympics. He produced a ghost-written autobiography with writer Ken Scott, Race Against Me, in 2009.
Still competing at the age of 45, he set a new indoor M45 60m world recordand reached the semi-finals in the UK Athletics Indoor Championships. Outside of Athletics, he is an athletics coach and public speaker.
He is of Afro-Caribbean- Jamaican descent and has two sons with his partner Leonie Daley. (Full article...)
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Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that for the first time this century, this year's British Athletics Championships were not broadcast on live television?
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- ... that at the 2022 British Indoor Athletics Championships, Lorraine Ugen equalled the championship long jump record?
- ... that at the 2022 British Athletics Championships, Daryll Neita became the first woman since 2010 to win both the 100- and 200-metre events?
- ... that German runner Alica Schmidt, who is running in the Women's 4 × 400 metres relay at the 2020 Summer Olympics, has won multiple European junior relay medals?
- ... that Marthe Yankurije, who dropped out of school during her fourth year of secondary school, competed at the 2020 Summer Olympics?
World records
Event | Men | Record | Women | Record |
---|---|---|---|---|
100 m | Usain Bolt | 9.58 | Florence Griffith Joyner | 10.49 |
200 m | Usain Bolt | 19.19 | Florence Griffith Joyner | 21.34 |
400 m | Wayde van Niekerk | 43.03 | Marita Koch | 47.60 |
800 m | David Rudisha | 1:40.91 | Jarmila Kratochvílová | 1:53.28 |
1500 m | Hicham El Guerrouj | 3:26.00 | Faith Kipyegon | 3:49.11 |
5000 m | Joshua Cheptegei | 12:35.36 | Gudaf Tsegay | 14:00.21 |
10,000 m | Joshua Cheptegei | 26:11.00 | Letesenbet Gidey | 29:01.03 |
Marathon | Kelvin Kiptum | 2:00:35 | Brigid Kosgei | 2:14:04 |
3000 m steeplechase | Lamecha Girma | 7:52.11 | Beatrice Chepkoech | 8:44.32 |
110 / 100 m hurdles | Aries Merritt | 12.80 | Tobi Amusan | 12.12 |
400 m hurdles | Karsten Warholm | 45.94 | Sydney McLaughlin | 50.68 |
High jump | Javier Sotomayor | 2.45 m | Stefka Kostadinova | 2.09 m |
Pole vault | Armand Duplantis | 6.23 m | Yelena Isinbayeva | 5.06 m |
Long jump | Mike Powell | 8.95 m | Galina Chistyakova | 7.52 m |
Triple jump | Jonathan Edwards | 18.29 m | Yulimar Rojas | 15.74 m |
Shot put | Ryan Crouser | 23.56 m | Natalya Lisovskaya | 22.63 m |
Discus throw | Jürgen Schult | 74.08 m | Gabriele Reinsch | 76.80 m |
Hammer throw | Yuriy Sedykh | 86.74 m | Anita Włodarczyk | 82.98 m |
Javelin throw | Jan Železný | 98.48 m | Barbora Špotáková | 72.28 m |
Decathlon/Heptathlon | Kevin Mayer | 9126 pts. | Jackie Joyner-Kersee | 7291 pts. |
20 km racewalk | Yusuke Suzuki | 1:16:36 | Yang Jiayu | 1:23:49 |
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
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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
- International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF)
- European Athletics Association (EAA)
- Confederation of African Athletics (CAA)
- Asian Athletics Association (AAA)
- North American, Central American and Caribbean Athletic Association
- CONSUDATLE
- Oceania Athletics Association (OAA)
- Nationals
- Australia: Athletics Australia (AA)
- Brazil: Brazilian Athletics Confederation (CBAt)
- Canada: Athletics Canada (AC)
- Czech: Czech Athletics Federation (ČAS)
- France: Fédération française d'athlétisme (FFA)
- Germany: German Athletics Association (DLV)
- Italy: Italian Athletics Federation (FIDAL)
- Jamaica: Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA)
- Japan: Japan Association of Athletics Federations (JAAF)
- Kenya: Athletics Kenya (AK)
- China: Chinese Athletic Association
- Norway: Norwegian Athletics Association
- Romania: Romanian Athletics Federation
- Spain: Royal Spanish Athletics Federation (RFEA)
- Great Britain: UK Athletics (UKA)
- United States: USA Track & Field (USATF)
- Others
- Wales: Welsh Athletics (WA)
- England: Amateur Athletic Association of England (AAA)
- Scotland: Scottishathletics
- Athletic Association of Small States of Europe (AASSE)
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