Mark Anthony S.

Dela Cruz BSCE-2E

History of Track And Field

The sport of track and field has its roots in human prehistory. Track and field-style events are among the oldest of all sporting competitions, as running, jumping and throwing are natural and universal forms of human physical expression. The first recorded examples of organized track and field events at a sports festival are the Ancient Olympic Games. At the first Games in 776 BC in Olympia, Greece, only one event was contested: the stadion footrace. The scope of the Games expanded in later years to include further running competitions, but the introduction of the Ancient Olympic pentathlon marked a step towards track and field as it is recognised todayit comprised a five-event competition of the long jump, javelin throw, discus throw, the stadion foot race, and wrestling. Track and field events were also present at the Panhellenic Games in Greece around this period, and they spread to Rome in Italy around 200 BC. After the period of Classical antiquity (in which the sport was largely Greco-Roman influenced) new track and field events began developing in parts of Northern Europe in the Middle Ages. The stone put and weight throw competitions popular among Celtic societies in Ireland and Scotland were precursors to the modern shot put and hammer throw events. One of the last track and field events to develop was the pole vault, which stemmed from competitions such as the Fierljeppen contests in the Northern European Lowlands in the 18th century. Discrete modern track and field competitions, separate from general sporting festivals, were first recorded in the late 19th century. These were typically organised by educational institutions, military organisations and sports clubs as competitions between rival establishments. Competitive hurdling first came into being around this point, with the advent of the steeplechase in England around 1850. The Amateur Athletic Association was established in England in 1880 as the first national body for the sport of athletics and, under this grouping, track and field became the focus of the annual AAA Championships. The United States also began holding an annual national competitionthe USA Outdoor Track and Field Championshipsfirst held in 1876 by the New York Athletic Club. Following the establishment of general sports governing bodies for the United States (the Amateur Athletic Union in 1888) and France (the Union des socits franaises de sports athltiques in 1889), track and field events began to be promoted and codified. The establishment of the modern Olympic Games at the end of the 19th century marked a new high for track and field. The Olympic athletics programme, comprising track and field events

plus a marathon race, contained many of the foremost sporting competitions of the 1896 Summer Olympics. The Olympics also consolidated the use of metric measurements in international track and field events, both for race distances and for measuring jumps and throws. The Olympic athletics programme greatly expanded over the next decades, and track and field contests remained among the Games' most prominent. The Olympics was the elite competition for track and field, and only amateur sportsmen could compete. Track and field continued to be a largely amateur sport, as this rule was strictly enforced: Jim Thorpe was stripped of his track and field medals from the 1912 Olympics after it was revealed that he had played baseball professionally. That same year, the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) was established, becoming the international governing body for track and field, and it enshrined amateurism as one of its founding principles for the sport. The National Collegiate Athletic Association held their first Men's Outdoor Track and Field Championship in 1921, making it one of the most prestigious competitions for students, and this was soon followed by the introduction of track and field at the inaugural World Student Games in 1923. The first continental track and field competition was the 1919 South American Championships, which was followed by the European Athletics Championships in 1934. Up until the early 1920s, track and field had been almost exclusively a male-only pursuit. The women's sports movement led to the introduction of five track and field events for women in the athletics at the 1928 Summer Olympics and more women's events were gradually introduced as years progressed (although it was only towards the end of the century that the men's and women's programmes approached parity of events). Furthermore, major track and field competitions for disabled athletes were first introduced at the 1960 Summer Paralympics. With the rise of numerous regional championships, as well as the growth in Olympicstyle multi-sport events (such as the Commonwealth Games and the Pan-American Games), competitions between international track and field athletes became widespread. From the 1960s onwards, the sport gained more exposure and commercial appeal through television coverage and the increasing wealth of nations. After over half a century of amateurism, the amateur status of the sport began to be displaced by growing professionalism in the late 1970s. As a result, the Amateur Athletic Union was dissolved in the United States and it was replaced with a non-amateur body solely focused on the sport of athletics: The Athletics Congress (later USA Track and Field). The IAAF soon followed suit in 1982, abandoning amateurism, and later removing all references to it from its name by rebranding itself as the International Association of Athletics Federations. The following year saw the establishment of the IAAF World Championships in Athleticsthe first ever global competition just for athleticswhich, with the Olympics, became one of track and field's most prestigious competitions. The profile of the sport reached a new high in the 1980s, with a number of athletes becoming household names (such as Carl Lewis, Sergey Bubka, Sebastian Coe,Zola

Budd and Florence Griffith-Joyner). Many world records were broken in this period, and the added political element between competitors of the United States, East Germany, and the Soviet Union, in reaction to the Cold War, only served to stoke the sport's popularity. The increase in the commercial capacity of track and field was also met with developments in the application of sports science, and there were many changes to coaching methods, athlete's diet regimes, training facilities and sports equipment. This was also accompanied by an increase in the use of performance-enhancing drugs, and prominent cases, such as those of Olympic gold medallists Ben Johnson and Marion Jones, damaged the public image and marketability of the sport. From the 1990s onwards, track and field became increasingly more professional and international, as the IAAF gained over two hundred member nations. The IAAF World Championships in Athletics became a fully professional competition with the introduction of prize money in 1997, and in 1998 the IAAF Golden Leaguean annual series of major track and field meetings in Europeprovided a higher level of economic incentive in the form of a US$1 million jackpot. In 2010, the series was replaced by the more lucrative IAAF Diamond League, a fourteen-meeting series held in Europe, Asia, North America and the Middle East the first ever worldwide annual series of track and field meeting

Implements of Track and Field

1. In all field events besides the high jump and pole vault: 1. The best distance out of all attempts will be counted. 2. With eight or more competitors, each athlete shall be allowed three trials. The top eight finishers (or nine if the track has enough lanes) will be allowed three additional trials. 3. If there are eight or fewer athletes (or nine if the track has enough lanes) all will be allowed six trials. In non-championship competitions and at the judgment of the games committee, the number of trials may be reduced to four. All throws and jumps must be measured immediately after each attempt. Distances in field events will be measured in meters. If the distance measured is not a whole centimeter, the number will be recorded to the nearest 0.01m below the distance.

Warm ups and Conditions for Track And Field

What is the first thing you should do before doing any physical activities? The first thing you should do is warm-up or stretch. It is important to do physical and mental warm-ups. If you do not warm-up you are likely to pull a muscle, or get hurt in a different way, because if your body isn't ready for the challenge of the activity your body will get tired fast, and you will probably become careless of what you are doing. Here is a list of warm-up exercises for track and field beginers: 1. Abdominal exercise: Lay on your back with your hands behind your head. Then with your knees straight, scissor kick in the air with your legs. 2. Leg and back exercise: From erect position feet shoulder width apart, arms extended sideward, touch left toe with right hand, then touch right toe with left hand, then repeat that motion over again. 3. Hip-Flexibility Exercise: Lay on your back, then lift your legs straight up and put your hands behind your back, so that you are in the candlestick position. Rotate your legs as in riding a bicycle. Star slowly and increase speed. 4. Arm and shoulder girdle exercise: Lay on your chest on the ground. With body your body straight, touch your chest to the ground and then push up to arms-extended position. (The same as push-ups.) 5. Trunk-Stretching exercise: Stand up straight with feet about three feet apart. Then put your arms straight out, and rotate whole upper trunk from waste up, from as far right to as far left as possible. Then repeat that motion. 6. Knee-lifting exercise: Stand in erect position. Then run in place, lifting your knees as hight as possible. 7. Crotch-flexibility exercise: From a hurdle position on the ground, lean forward touching right toes with both hands, and hold for about five seconds. Next do the same with your left foot, and repeat a few times. 8. Rear-leg exercise: Lean back gradually from an erect starting position. Then lift your leg onto a structure about waste high. Take turns with each leg. 9. Rear-Leg Pull Through exercise: Stand in an erect position. Pull your trailing leg over the hurdle in a smooth continuous arc. Keep your knee low, your toes turned up, and the lower part of your leg practically parallel with the ground. 10. Lead leg excercise: Stand in an erect position. Lift your leg onto a hurdle. Then pull your chest down to your thigh of the leg on the hurdle. Repeat this a few times with each leg.

11. Front leg excercise: Stand in an erect position. Stand in front of a hurdle facing away from it. Then gradually lift your leg onto the hurdle behind you. Bend forward, pulling your chest to the thigh of your leg that you are standing on.

Different Track and Field Events

Running Sprints: Sprints (or dashes) are the fastest events on the track and test the pure speed of the runner. Sprint races include the: 60m (indoor), 100m, 200m, and 400m. The hurdle events are also considered sprints. Hurdles include the 60m (indoor), 100m (women), 110m (men), 300m (high school) and the 400m. Runners must stay in their lanes at all times during these races. Mid-Distance: These races go more than one time around a 400m track. The mid-distance races are: The 800m, 1,500m, 1 mile or 2 mile, and 3,000m. Often included here is the 3,000m steeplechase. Long Distance: The long distance races are the 5,000m and 10,000m. Though traditionally considered endurance events, these events have increasingly requiring high levels of speed, especially at top levels of competition. Hurdles: Hurdle races are sprints in which an athlete must jump 10 barriers, called hurdles, over the course of the race. The height of the hurdle varies by race. Relays: Relays enhance the team atmosphere of track and field. Four runners make up one relay team. Each member takes the baton a specified distance around the track before handing it off in set exchange zones. In most relays, each member of the team runs the same distance. The medley relays, however, are made up of four legs of different distance. These require greater athletic diversity and strategy. In both cases, the goal is to be the first team to get the baton across the finish line. Common relay races include: The 4x100, 4x400, 4x200, 4x800, sprint medley (SMR), and the distance medley (DMR).

Throwing Shot Put: A throwing event in which the athlete must throw a heavy metal ball as far as possible, without stepping out of the throwing ring. The weight of the shot depends on age of the competitor. Discus: A throwing event where a disc-shaped object is thrown by the competitor from a throwing circle. Weight and size of the discus depends on the age of the competitor. Hammer: In this throwing event, a heavy metal ball is attached by wire to and handle. The athlete, holding the handle, spins the whole implement around his body, timing the release to launch the hammer as far as possible. Javelin: This event requires the athlete to throw a spear-like object across the field. This is the only throwing event where the competitor is allowed to run to gain power and momentum before the throw. Jumping High Jump: In the high jump, an athlete demonstrates how high he can jump vertically by clearing a bar (in any unaided manner). The athlete must takeoff on only one foot. Long Jump: In the long jump, the athlete begins with a running start and must jump as far as possible (without crossing over a foul line). Triple Jump: The triple jump is a hop, a step or skip, and a third jump into a sand pit. The athletes jump is measured from the board at the first takeoff. Pole Vault: The pole vault requires an athlete to use a long pole to power himself over a crossbar without knocking over the bar. .