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...)

Cover of the official report for the 1896 Summer Olympics

The 1896 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the I Olympiad, and commonly known as Athens 1896 (Greek: Αθήνα 1896), was the first international Olympic Games held in modern history. Organised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which had been created by French aristocrat Pierre de Coubertin, it was held in Athens, Greece, from 6 to 15 April 1896.

Fourteen nations (according to the IOC, though the number is subject to interpretation) and 241 athletes (all males; this number is also disputed) took part in the games. Participants were all European, or living in Europe, with the exception of the United States team. Over 65% of the competing athletes were Greek. Winners were given a silver medal, while runners-up received a copper medal. Retroactively, the IOC has converted these to gold and silver, and awarded bronze medals to third placed athletes. Ten of the 14 participating nations earned medals. The United States won the most gold medals, 11, while host nation Greece won the most medals overall, 47. The highlight for the Greeks was the marathon victory by their compatriot Spyridon Louis. The most successful competitor was German wrestler and gymnast Carl Schuhmann, who won four events.

The 1896 Olympics were regarded as a great success. The Games had the largest international participation of any sporting event to that date. The Panathenaic Stadium overflowed with the largest crowd ever to watch a sporting event. After the Games, Coubertin and the IOC were petitioned by several prominent figures, including Greece's King George and some of the American competitors in Athens, to hold all the following Games in Athens. However, the 1900 Summer Olympics were already planned for Paris and, with the exception of the Intercalated Games of 1906, the Olympics did not return to Greece until the 2004 Summer Olympics, 108 years later. (Full article...)

9 July:

• Pauline Davis-Thompson, Bahamian sprinter
• Ben Eastman, American 400/800 runner
• Olusoji Fasuba, Nigerian sprinter
• Kara Goucher, American distance runner
• Sim Iness, American discus thrower
• Derek Mills, American sprinter
• Gulnara Samitova-Galkina, Russian steeplechase runner
• Richard Sheldon, American shot putter and discus thrower
• Rutger Smith, Dutch shot putter and discus 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?

Shaheen in 2009

Saif Saaeed Shaheen (Arabic: سيف سعيد شاهين), formerly Stephen Cherono (born 15 October 1982), is a steeplechase runner. He was born in Keiyo, Kenya but now he represents Qatar. He was, for 19 years, the world record holder for 3000 metre steeplechase. He is a two time World Champion in the event. His older brother Abraham Cherono is also a steeplechase runner.

He was the 1999 World Youth Champion in the steeplechase and set a world junior record two years later. He won the steeplechase at the 2002 Commonwealth Games for Kenya but switched allegiance to Qatar in 2003. That year he became world champion in the event, although a dispute with the Kenyan Athletics Federation meant he was ineligible to compete at the 2004 Summer Olympics. He set a world record of 7:53.63 minutes in Brussels just ten days after the Olympic final, and later defeated that year's Olympic champion, Ezekiel Kemboi, at the 2004 World Athletics Final in Monaco.

In the 2006 season he took the 3000 metres silver medal at the 2006 IAAF World Indoor Championships and also set a number of Asian records. He completed a 5000 m/steeplechase double at the 2006 IAAF World Cup. Serious injuries ruled him out from late 2006 to 2008. He returned in 2009 and 2010 but failed to reach the same level of performance and retired from the sport. (Full article...)

• ... that the men's 100 metres event at the 2023 British Athletics Championships was run in heavy rain?
• ... 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 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?
• ... that when the Oakland Athletics promoted Bill McNulty to the major leagues, they needed forest rangers to find him?
• ... 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?
• ... that at the 2022 British Indoor Athletics Championships, Lorraine Ugen equalled the championship long jump record?

• WikiProject Athletics
• WikiProject Sports

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