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...)

Canadian high jumper Nicole Forrester demonstrating the Fosbury flop

The high jump is a track and field event in which competitors must jump unaided over a horizontal bar placed at measured heights without dislodging it. In its modern, most-practiced format, a bar is placed between two standards with a crash mat for landing. Since ancient times, competitors have introduced increasingly effective techniques to arrive at the current form, and the current universally preferred method is the Fosbury Flop, in which athletes run towards the bar and leap head first with their back to the bar.

The discipline is, alongside the pole vault, one of two vertical clearance events in the Olympic athletics program. It is contested at the World Championships in Athletics and the World Athletics Indoor Championships, and is a common occurrence at track and field meets. The high jump was among the first events deemed acceptable for women, having been held at the 1928 Olympic Games.

Javier Sotomayor (Cuba) is the current world record holder with a jump of 2.45 m (8 ft 1⁄4 in) set in 1993 – the longest-standing record in the history of the men's high jump. Stefka Kostadinova (Bulgaria) has held the women's world record of 2.09 m (6 ft 10+1⁄4 in) since 1987, also the longest-held record in the event. (Full article...)

5 December:

• Marise Chamberlain, New Zealand middle-distance runner
• Ashia Hansen, British triple jumper
• Patriz Ilg, German steeplechase runner
• Pamela Jelimo, Kenyan middle-distance runner
• Linet Masai, Kenyan distance runner
• Falilat Ogunkoya, Nigerian sprinter
• Duane Ross, American hurdler
• Valeriy Spitsyn, Russian race walker
• Juha Tiainen, Finnish hammer thrower

• ... that the 2000 Summer Olympics gold medalist in the heptathlon was Denise Lewis?
• ... that as part of a publicity stunt, the 1927 Texas Relays held an 89 mile (143 km) running race from San Antonio to Austin?
• ... that Czech decathlete Roman Šebrle, world record holder and 2004 Olympic winner, was injured in January 2007 when a javelin which had been thrown 55 metres pierced his shoulder?
• ... that at the 2001 World Championships in Athletics, Yipsi Moreno became world champion in the hammer throw at the age of twenty, improving from an eighteenth place finish in 1999?

Pietro Mennea, 1972

Pietro Paolo Mennea (Italian pronunciation: [ˈpjɛːtro menˈnɛːa]; 28 June 1952 – 21 March 2013), nicknamed la Freccia del Sud ("the Arrow of the South"), was an Italian sprinter and politician. He was most successful in the 200m event, winning a gold medal at the 1980 Moscow Olympics, and set a world record at 19.72 seconds in September 1979. This record stood for almost 17 years – the longest duration in the event history – and is still the European record. He is the only male sprinter who has qualified at four consecutive 200 metres Olympic finals: from 1972 to 1984. (Full article...)

• ... that the men's 100 metres event at the 2023 British Athletics Championships was run in heavy rain?
• ... that every competitor at the 2021 British Athletics Marathon and 20km Walk Trial received a commemorative bonsai tree?
• ... 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 at the 2022 British Indoor Athletics Championships, Lorraine Ugen equalled the championship long jump record?
• ... that the women's race at today's New York City Marathon will feature two of the medalists from this year's Olympic marathon?
• ... that Marthe Yankurije, who dropped out of school during her fourth year of secondary school, competed at the 2020 Summer Olympics?
• ... that in the 1932 baseball game in which pitcher Eddie Rommel won his last game, he pitched 17 innings in relief, an American League record?

WikiProjects

• WikiProject Athletics
• WikiProject Sports

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