Athletics

ATHLETICS

Athletics 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 modern program includes track and field events, road running events, and race walking events. Cross country running was also on the program in earlier editions but it was dropped after the 1924 Summer Olympics.

Athletics icon in the Olympic Games

More About Some Events

• The 100m Olympic sprint champion is hailed the fastest man on earth. This event has been on all Olympic Games programs and has provided many highlights. 
• The marathon was originally conceived as a race for the 1896 Olympics in Athens, commemorating the run of the soldier Pheidippides from a battlefield at the site of the town of Marathon. 
• The Decathlon has been included in the Olympic Games since 1912. The decathlon comprises 10 different events, with points are awarded for each event with the overall winner having the most points. 
• The first time an athletics relay race was held was in 1908. It was a Medley relay, consisting of 1600 meters being run by four athletes per team, the first two runners each ran 200 meters, the third runner ran 400m and the fourth ran 800m. The winning US team included African-American John Taylor, the first black athlete to have won a gold medal. The runners did not carry a baton as they do now, the transfers were by "touch" .

Jesse Owens ,1936 

Some Notable Olympic Athletes

• The star of the 1912 Games in Stockholm was the American Indian Jim Thorpe, who won both the decathlon and pentathlon. However, in the following year it was discovered that he once played semi-professional baseball, and he was subsequently striped of his gold medals. In 1982, he was officially pardoned by the IOC, 29 years after his death. Replicas of his 1912 medals were presented to his family at the start of 1983.
• In Stockholm, 1912, Finland began its domination of long-distance running events, as Hannes Kolehmainen picked up three gold medals and a silver.
• Charley Paddock, the American sprinter who won the 100m in 1920, died in a plane crash in 1943 while serving as a captain in the US Marines.
• Holland's "Fanny" Blankers-Koen won 4 gold medals in track and field at the 1948 London Games. Fanny was 30 years old and the mother of 2 at the time.
• In 1952, Emil Zatopek of Czechoslovakia became the only man to win gold metals in the 5000 meters, the 10,000 meters, and the marathon in the same Olympiad. It was also his first attempt at the marathon.
• In 1956, the gold medal winning hammer thrower from America, Hal Connolly, won despite a physical disability - his left arm was inches shorter and much less developed that his right.
• The Olympic torchbearer for the 1956 Olympics was a virtually unknown 19 year old at the time he carried the torch into the stadium at Melbourne. Ron Clarke went on to become the world's finest distance runner in the 1960s.
• In Tokyo 1964, American Al Oerter won the discus throw for the third straight time, despite a cervical disc injury and torn rib cartilage.
• In Mexico City, 1968, Bob Beamon shattered the long-jump world record by more than 21 inches, Dick Fosbury revolutionized the high-jump with his back-first "Fosbury flop" technique, taking home the gold, and Al Oerter won the discus toss a fourth time.
• In 1984, American Carl Lewis repeated Jesse Owens' 1936 feat, winning gold medals in the same four events. In 1992, Carl Lewis won two more gold medals, bringing his total to eight. In 1996, he got his ninth gold medal by winning the long jump.
• In 1996, America's Michael Johnson won both the 200m and 400m races; Marie-José Perec from France did the same.
• In 2008, Jamaican Usain Bolt became the first man to win gold in the 100m, 200m and 4x100m sprints. He repeated that effort in London 2012, becoming the first man ever to win six Olympic gold medals in sprinting.
• In 2012, South African Oscar Pistorius (aka the 'Blade Runner') became the first double amputee to take part in both the Olympics and Paralympics. He competed in the Olympic Games 400m and the 4 x 400 m relay races.

Usain Bolt, won six gold medals in sprinting