Portal Sport of athletics

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...)

Tartan Track is a trademarked all-weather synthetic track surfacing made of polyurethane used for track and field competitions, manufactured by 3M. The original production was in 1967, and the product was later reformulated to eliminate the use of mercury. Relative to some^{[weasel words]} other surfaces, it lets athletes compete in bad weather without serious performance loss and improves their results over other surfaces. It also provides a more consistent surface for competition even under optimum weather. Similar tracks have become the standard for most elite competitions.

Because the "Tartan" product was widely successful in its time, the name Tartan has been used as a genericized trademark for description of an all-weather running track.^{[original research?]}

Athletic Polymer Systems, a subsidiary of MCP Industries, Inc., manages the installation of Tartan-branded running track

A competing product is AstroTurf, originally made by Monsanto in 1965 and originally called ChemGrass. Like the Tartan product, the "AstroTurf" brand name has become genericized. The Tartan branded product has also had various other competitors. (Full article...)

9 May:

• Ralph Boston, American long jumper
• James Butts, American triple jumper
• Frank Foss, American pole vaulter
• Dorothy Hyman, British sprinter
• Tegla Loroupe, Kenyan distance runner
• Marie-José Pérec, French sprinter
• Fred Warngård, Swedish hammer thrower

• ... that 1985 NCAA hurdling champion Thomas Wilcher won the Michigan High School Athletic Association team track & field championship three consecutive times, both as an athlete and a coach?
• ... that Charlie Fonville broke a 14-year-old shot put world record by almost twelve inches at the 1948 Kansas Relays but was not allowed to stay with the other athletes because he was African-American?
• ... that the Peachtree Road Race, held annually on July 4 (U.S. Independence Day) in Atlanta, Georgia, is the world's largest 10 kilometer road race with 55,000 runners participating in 2007?
• ... that Patrick Ivuti's photo finish victory in the 2007 Chicago Marathon, one of the five major marathons, was his first marathon victory?

Stephanie Hightower (born July 19, 1958) is an American former hurdler and former president of USA Track & Field (USATF). She is a four-time U.S. Champion at 100 meter hurdles and a five-time U.S. Indoor Champion at 60 meter hurdles. She also won the 1980 U.S. Olympic Trials, but was prevented from competing in the Moscow Olympics due to the boycott. She won a silver medal at the 1987 Pan American Games.

Hightower became president of USA Track & Field in December 2008. She resigned as chair of the USATF board in April 2015 and was elected to the IAAF Council in August 2015 She resigned as president of USATF in December 2016. (Full article...)

• ... that the men's 100 metres event at the 2023 British Athletics Championships was run in heavy rain?
• ... that Marthe Yankurije, who dropped out of school during her fourth year of secondary school, competed at the 2020 Summer Olympics?
• ... that for the first time this century, this year's British Athletics Championships were not broadcast on live television?
• ... 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 at the 2022 British Indoor Athletics Championships, Lorraine Ugen equalled the championship long jump record?
• ... 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?
• ... 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 the women's race at today's New York City Marathon will feature two of the medalists from this year's Olympic marathon?

• WikiProject Athletics
• WikiProject Sports

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