Athletics
Athletics may refer to:
Sports
* Sport of athletics, a collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking
** Track and field, a sub-category of the above sport
* Athletics (physical culture), competi ...
has been contested at every
Summer Olympics since the birth of the modern Olympic movement at the
1896 Summer Olympics. The athletics program traces its earliest roots to events used in the
ancient Greek Olympics
The ancient Olympic Games (Ὀλυμπιακοὶ ἀγῶνες; la, Olympia, neuter plural: "the Olympics") were a series of athletic competitions among representatives of city-states and were one of the Panhellenic Games of Ancient Greece. ...
. The modern program includes
track and field
Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping eve ...
events,
road running
Road running is the sport of running on a measured course over an established road. This differs from track and field on a regular track and cross country running over natural terrain.
These events are usually classified as long-distance ...
events, and
race walking
Racewalking, or race walking, is a long-distance discipline within the sport of athletics. Although a foot race, it is different from running in that one foot must appear to be in contact with the ground at all times. Race judges carefully asse ...
events.
Cross country running
Cross country running is a sport in which teams and individuals run a race on open-air courses over natural terrain such as dirt or grass. The course, typically long, may include surfaces of grass and soil, earth, pass through woodlands and ope ...
was also on the program in earlier editions but it was dropped after the
1924 Summer Olympics.
Summary
Events
The events contested have varied widely. From 1900 to 1920,
tug of war
Tug of war (also known as tug o' war, tug war, rope war, rope pulling, or tugging war) is a sport that pits two teams against each other in a test of strength: teams pull on opposite ends of a rope, with the goal being to bring the rope a certa ...
was considered to be part of the Olympic athletics programme, although the sports of
tug of war
Tug of war (also known as tug o' war, tug war, rope war, rope pulling, or tugging war) is a sport that pits two teams against each other in a test of strength: teams pull on opposite ends of a rope, with the goal being to bring the rope a certa ...
and
athletics
Athletics may refer to:
Sports
* Sport of athletics, a collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking
** Track and field, a sub-category of the above sport
* Athletics (physical culture), competi ...
are now considered distinct.
Men's events
No new events have been added to the men's athletics programme since the 1952 addition of the short racewalk. The roster of events has not changed since then, with the exception of the omission of the long racewalk in 1976 (the IAAF held a
50 km walk World Championships that year instead and as a result the event was restored in 1980). The long racewalk is the only event currently held for men but not included on the women's programme, with the exception of women taking part in the
heptathlon rather than the
decathlon and the
100 metres hurdles
The 100 metres hurdles, or 100-meter hurdles, is a track and field event run mainly by women (the male counterpart is the 110 metres hurdles). For the race, ten hurdles of a height of are placed along a straight course of . The first hurdle is ...
rather than the
110 metres hurdles
The 110 metres hurdles, or 110-metre hurdles, is a hurdling track and field event for men. It is included in the athletics programme at the Summer Olympic Games. The female counterpart is the 100 metres hurdles. As part of a racing event, ten hu ...
. The last women's event added to the roster was the
3000 metres steeplechase in
2008
File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...
.
A total of 52 different events have been held in the men's competition. The current list comprises 23 events. Many of the discontinued events were similar to modern ones but at different lengths, especially in the steeplechasing, hurdling, and racewalking disciplines. Team racing events have been eliminated after appearing in six early editions of the Games. The athletic triathlon (an unusual event, held only once and featuring gymnasts competing in the long jump, shot put, and 100 metre dash) and
pentathlon multi-discipline events were phased out in favor of the decathlon, and the medley relay replaced with even-leg relays. Standing jump competitions are no longer held, nor are the various modified throwing events which were experimented with in 1908 and 1912.
Cross country running
Cross country running is a sport in which teams and individuals run a race on open-air courses over natural terrain such as dirt or grass. The course, typically long, may include surfaces of grass and earth, pass through woodlands and open cou ...
was on the program from 1912 to 1924 and is the most prominent form of athletics not to feature at the Olympics.
Women's events
Women's competition in athletics began at the
1928 Summer Olympics
Mixed event
The mixed event, a 4 x 400 meters relay, first made an appearance at the
2020 Summer Olympics
The , officially the and also known as , was an international multi-sport event held from 23 July to 8 August 2021 in Tokyo, Japan, with some preliminary events that began on 21 July.
Tokyo was selected as the host city during the 1 ...
. The event includes teams of four athletes, two men and two women who are allowed to run in any order decided by the team.
Nations
Nearly every nation that has competed at the Olympics has entered the athletics competition, except
Bhutan
Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainou ...
. The number in each box represents the number of athletes the nation sent.
Medal table
''Updated after the 2020 Summer Olympics, considering
stripped medals as of March 23, 2022''
Sources:
[Historical Medallists]
/ref>
See also
*Athletics at the Summer Paralympics
Athletics has been contested at every Summer Paralympics since the first games in 1960. Men and women from all disability groups compete in the sport.
Some athletes use wheelchairs or prosthetic limbs and compete in their respective sport indep ...
*Athletics at the Youth Olympic Games
Athletics has featured as a sport at the Youth Olympic Summer Games since its first edition in 2010. The Youth Olympic Games are multi-sport event and the games are held every four years just like the Olympic Games. Athletes under the age of 18 ...
References
External links
Olympic sports
Results from 1896 to 2016
Sports in Olympics , List of Bizarre Sports in Olympics
{{DEFAULTSORT:Athletics At The Summer Olympics
Olympic Games
The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a vari ...
Sports at the Summer Olympics