TRACK AND FIELD ATHLETICS

Track and field athletics is one of the most popular kinds of sports. It is a sport in which athletes compete in running, walking, jumping and throwing events. It is called track and field because the events are contested either on the track or on the field of the stadium.

Track and field athletics has a long history. The first foot race probably took place thousands of years ago, at the ancient Olympic Games, held in Greece. Modern athletics began in the schools of England. In 1864, Cambridge University competed against Oxford University in the first intervarsity athletics event. In 1896, Athens, Greece, hosted the first mod­ern Olympic Games that stimulated great interest in this sport.

In 1912, 16 countries agreed to form the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) to govern amateur athletics. Nowadays about 180 nations belong to the IAAF.

Athletics meetings can be held indoors or outdoors. Outdoor running tracks are oval in shape and measure 400 metres. Track events consist of running and walking races of various distances. Short-distance races, called sprints, are 100 metres, 200 metres and 400 metres. Middle-distance events are the 800 metres and 1500 metres. Long-distance events are 5000 and 10000 metres. Marathon is a footrace of 42.2 kilometres.

Hurdle races are events in which the competitors run over obstacles called hurdles. Hurdle races are 110 metres for men and 100 metres for women and 400 metres for both. Runners can knock over hurdles without penalty, but contact with a hurdle normally slows down the runner.

Steeplechase is a test of middle-distance running, en­durance and hurdling skill. The steeplechase is a race usually of 3,000 me­tres, over two kinds of obstacles, hurdles and water jumps. It is contested both by men and women.

Walking races are events in which athletes must follow certain rules of walking technique: the front foot must touch the ground before the rear foot leaves the ground. While the foot is touching the ground, the leg must be unbent. The judges shall caution once and than disqualify a competitor who is not walking within the definition. The standard walking events are the 20 km road walks for women; 20 km and 50 km for men.

Relays are run by teams of four runners carrying a ba­ton that is to be exchanged. The relays are run at the distances of 4X100 metres and 4X400 metres.

Field events are contests in jumping and throwing. Most field events take place in an area enclosed by the track. The field includes runways for the jumping events and special circular areas for most of the throwing events.

The jumps are the long jump, triple jump, high jump, and pole vault. In the long jump and triple jump, athletes jump as far forward as they can. The long jump is competed in a single jump into a pit filled with sand. The triple jump consists of three continuous jumps, the first two completed on the runway. A jump’s length is measured from the front edge of the take-off board to the nearest mark the athlete makes in the sand. If the athlete steps past the board before jumping, the jump is a foul.

In high jumping and pole vaulting athletes try to propel themselves over a long thin crossbar held up by two posts called uprights. If a jumper knocks the crossbar off the uprights, the jump counts as a miss. Three consecutive misses eliminate the jumper. The winner is the one who clears the greatest height. The most popular modern style of high jumping, called the “Fosbury flop”, was named after American high jumper Dick Fosbury, who introduced it in the late 1960s. A pole vaulter uses a long pole usually made of fiberglass. The pole first bends, than straightens, helping the athlete to cover the height about 5 meters.

The throwing events are the discus, hammer, javelin, and shot-put. Throwing events require athletes to propel an object as far as they can. Competitors in the discus, hammer, and shot put all throw from inside a circle surrounded by a protective enclo­sure, called a “cage”. In the javelin event, the athlete runs down a runway marked on the field and throws the javelin before reaching a foul line. In each event, the thrown object must land within a marked area.

The decathlonandheptathlon are combined competi­tions, in which athletes compete in several different events, receiving a score for their performance in each event. The winner is the athlete who receives the highest total score. The decathlon is a 10-event competition for men. The heptathlon is a seven-event competition for women.

The Belarusian athletes made their Olympic debut in 1952 in Helsinki as members of the USSR team. Mikhail Krivonosov was the first Belarusian athlete to win an Olympic medal (silver in hammer throwing) in 1956 in Melbourn, Austra­lia. Among the other Belarusian athletes we can remember the names of Vladimir Goryaev (silver), Romuald Klim (gold and silver medals), Igor Lapshin (silver) and many others. Yanina Korolchik won the gold medal in shot-put in Sydney, Australia, in 2000. Elena Zvereva won the gold medal in discus throwing at the same Olympics. A real hero of the Olympic Games in Athens became Yulia Nesterenko in the distance 100 metres. She won the gold medal. Irina Yatchenko won a bronze medal in discus and Ivan Tikhon – silver in hammer throwing at the same Olympic Games.

Great were results of Belarusian athletics team at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Oksana Menkova won Olympic gold in hammer throw with new Olympic record. Silver medalists became Vadim Deviatovskiy (hammer throw), Andrey Kravchenko (decathlon) and Natalia Mikhnevich (shot put). Ivan Tikhon won the bronze medal in hammer throw as well as Nadzezhda Ostapchuk and Andrey Mirhnevich in shot put.

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 4505