Sports
Athletics
Also Known As Track and Field In American usage the sport is called track and field; outside the US athletics is the umbrella term for track and field plus road running, cross country and race walking.
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Athletics, also called track and field, comprises foot races, jumps and throws contested individually. Foot races were the founding events of the ancient Olympic Games at Olympia in Greece, traditionally dated from 776 BC, whose first recorded champion was Coroebus of Elis, winner of the stadion sprint race, though that traditional date itself rests on later Greek chronographers reconstructing a king list rather than a contemporary record. Modern organized athletics is a distinct nineteenth century development, growing out of competitions at English public schools and universities from the 1840s onward and formalized with the founding of the Amateur Athletic Club in 1866, more than two and a half thousand years after the ancient Games it is often loosely said to descend from.
Facts
Origin YearThe Amateur Athletic Club, founded 1866, was athletics' first organizing body in England and ran the first Annual Open Athletics Championship on 23 March 1866; the entity's primary origin-year (776 BC) records the ancient Olympic stadion race instead, per the entity-description's own account of two different questions about the sport's origin. Originating RegionAncient Greece (for the ancient Olympic foot races); England (for modern nineteenth century codification) 2 International Governing BodyWorld Athletics, founded 1912 as the International Association of Athletics Federations, headquartered in Monaco. 2 Disputed
Origin Year776 BC is the traditional founding date of the ancient Olympic Games and their stadion foot race, the earliest recorded athletic contest, but that date itself is a later Greek chronographic reconstruction rather than a contemporary record. Modern organized athletics is a separate nineteenth century development, formalized with the Amateur Athletic Club founding in 1866 in England, so 776 BC and 1866 answer two different questions about the sport origin rather than agreeing on one. Cross-Tradition Connections
Featured In
Governed By
Played By
Sources
1. Wikipedia, Amateur Athletic Club
WikipediaLead sectionQuote, Lead section
from 1866 to 1879 was the de facto governing body for amateur athletics in the United Kingdom.
2. Encyclopaedia Britannica
Wikipedia, Track and Field
Wikimedia FoundationLead sectionQuote, Lead section
Track and field is categorized under the umbrella sport of athletics, which also includes road running, cross country running and race walking.
International Olympic Committee, Official Olympic History Reference
International Olympic CommitteePlayed By: Jesse Owens
International Olympic Committee, Official Olympic History Reference
International Olympic CommitteeFeatured In: Olympic Games
International Paralympic Committee, Official History
International Paralympic CommitteeFeatured In: Paralympic Games
Wikipedia, World Athletics
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