Sports - Athletics

Good evening everyone! As you can see, this week we have a really great topic. I prepare a text for you related to athletics which is one of the most practiced sports in the world. Truth be told, it is inexpensive and easy to start.

Athletics is strongly related to the Olympic Games since 1896 (they were held in Athens, Greece) but the roots are prehistoric! 

‘’Athletics’’ is the most often used expression in Europe and in a large part of the world to refer to the sport which is involving running, throwing, jumping and walking. In North America, instead of using this term, we are talking about ‘’Track and Field’’ (Track describes all the disciplines you can do precisely on the track, and Field refers to all of the rest: jumping and throwing events).

No matter what event you want to be involved in, you really have the choice here! Running, throwing, jumping, walking… Or even combined events like heptathlon or decathlon! If you’re a long-distance runner, you’ll probably prefer marathon race, cross country running, road running or race walking.

Athletics is commonly describes as an individual sport. But now there’s an international competition - the ‘’IAAF World Relays’’ - which is only concerned by relay races. The first edition was in 2013. The most common relay races are the 4X100 meters and the 4X400 meters. In a relay race, four athletes form a team and take turns running around the track. While they are already running, they have to carry a baton and transfer it for their next teammate between the marked lines and not make it fall on the floor. Not as easy as you thought, right? 

Short distance racers are called sprinters. They start with their feet against a starting block and their hands on the track. The race begins when a gun is fired and the sprinters have to run as fast as they can towards the finish line, but they must always stay in their lanes. The 100m dash is one of the most popular events but short distance races cover all the distances until 400 meters included. The 100m world record holder is actually considered as the fastest man on Earth. The current world record holder is nicknamed as “Lightning Bolt’’.  
Middle distance races are the 800m, 1,500m and sometimes the 3,000m races. In that kind of event, runners need speed and also endurance. The 5,000 and 10,000m races are the longest races on the track but the longest one is the marathon. It goes back to 490 B.C. when a Greek soldier ran all the way from Marathon to Athens (about 40 km) to tell the people about a great military victory. Today the marathon distance is 42.195 meters and it is run mostly on the road. World-renowned, the first Boston Marathon was held in 1897.

The jumping events at athletic meets are the high jump, the pole vault, the long jump and the triple jump. High jump and pole vault athletes have to jump over a metal stick called a crossbar placed on two vertical poles. At both events you have three tries to get over it. When you clear the bar, its height is increased by a few cm. However, pole vaulters must jump over a high-placed crossbar and they have long flexible poles that may be up to five meters long to do it. They run towards the crossbar and before they get there, they plant the pole into a small box on the ground. Then they thrust themselves high up into the air and try to get over the bar. The 2012 Olympic champion Renaud Lavillenie has broken Sergey Bubka's 21-year-old pole vault world record with a 6.16m leap in Ukraine last year.

There are four throwing events at track and field meets: the shot put, hammer, discus and javelin. Shot putters belong to the strongest athletes at athletic events. They have to stand in a circle in order to make their throws. The shot is a heavy metal ball that weighs up to 7.25 kg. It is put between chin and shoulders and then thrown as far as possible into the field. Women use a lighter shot (4kg). Then the discus looks like a plate that athletes spin into the field. It is the oldest throwing event and was a classic contest at the Olympic Games of ancient Greece (the first Olympic Games were held in Greece in 776 B.C. and were called the ancient games). 

The modern games began in 1896, when the Frenchman Pierre de Coubertin revived the games to bring peace and friendship to the young people all over the world, and gave athletes worldwide importance. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is the organization that decides which sports and events are held at the games. The International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF), which has to set the rules and approve of world records, was founded in 1912.

Finally, competing at the highest-level requires intense training which can be considered by many people as extreme. Indeed, elite athletes have to stay fit, eat a healthy diet, train for hours every day, take part in competitions, accept interviews etc… In brief, you have to stay on the top - or at least - do your best. For years, only amateurs were able to participate in the games, but today, most athletes are professionals, who earn their money through sport. It implies a lot of sacrifices. It clears that even if the majority of people are not competing at that level, training necessarily implies some sacrifices. Why are there so many people running then? The answer is really simple. Nowadays people are running for fun. 

*Remember: ‘’Athletics’’ is a plural noun but it always takes a singular verb as it’s treated as a singular (like economics, linguistics, gymnastics, news, physics, etc…).