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Athletics

STUDENT BACKGROUND

When you hear the word Olympics, what sports come to mind first? Chances are, one of those sports would be athletics, especially the running events like the exciting sprints, the nail-biting hurdles or the gruelling marathon. For many people, it is athletics that define the Olympic Games.

Robert de Castella - 1984 Los Angeles Olympics (Allsport)


Athletics is the original ancient Olympics sport, dating back to hundreds of years BC. Just as you might enjoy racing a friend, throwing a ball or frisbee or jumping over a puddle, for thousands of years our early ancestors competed with each other at activities such as running, throwing and jumping, just for fun. In time, people organised these games into official, scheduled competitions.

What do minerals, the building blocks of rocks, have to do with athletics and the Olympics? Plenty! Much of the equipment athletes use and that which measures their performance is made from minerals.

The following information sheets and student activities, will help you find out more.

Information sheets

Student activities

EXTENSION IDEA


There are two types of athletics in the Olympics - "track" and "field".

Track athletics is made up of four types of events: running, hurdling, walking and relays. They take place on a track which is exactly 400m long around the inside of a stadium, such as the Beijing Olympic Stadium.


Colin Jackson (Allsport)
Emma George (Allsport)


Field athletics consists of four throwing events (shotput, discus, hammer throw and javelin) and four jumping events (high jump, long jump, triple jump and pole vault) which generally take place at the same time as the track events, on an area within the boundary of the stadium's track.

DID YOU KNOW?

Women first participated in the Olympics in 1928, in five athletics events: discus, high jump, 100m sprint, 800m race and 4x100 m relay.

The word athlete comes from the Greek word for "prize seeker".


DID YOU KNOW?

The marathon in Athens will be run on the original course used by a Greek soldier in 490 B.C. to announce victory over the Persians.

The finish line will be at the marble Panathenaic Stadium where the first modern Olympics were revived in 1896.

The winners are the fastest, fittest or strongest athletes in the world! In 1895, the Olympic motto of Citius, Altius, Fortius was written and its translation from the Latin is "Swifter, Higher, Stronger".

Athletes have certainly achieved these three goals over and over, with Olympic records regularly being broken over the decades.

A major contribution to this has been the use of minerals (the building blocks of rocks) in the modern equipment used by field athletes. In fact, it could be said that improvements in the materials and design of sports equipment have played a major role in helping athletes achieve incredible feats!

With competition getting tighter, modern measuring technology has become necessary to separate first and second place. This technology also depends on the huge number of minerals in the electronic devices.

Student Activities