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...)

The hammer throw is one of the four throwing events in regular outdoor track and field competitions, along with the discus throw, shot put and javelin.

The "hammer" used in this sport is not like any of the tools also called by that name. It consists of a metal ball attached by a steel wire to a grip. These three components are each separate and can move independently. Both the size and weight of the ball vary between men's and women's events. The women's hammer weighs 4 kilograms (8.8 lb) for college and professional meets while the men's hammer weighs 7.26 kilograms (16.0 lb). (Full article...)

This section is an excerpt from Hammer throw § Competition.[edit]

The men's hammer weighs 16 pounds (7.26 kg) and measures 3 feet 11+3⁄4 inches (121.3 cm) in length, and the women's hammer weighs 4 kg (8.82 lb) and 3 ft 11 in (119.4 cm) in length.^[1] Like the other throwing events, the competition is decided by who can throw the implement the farthest.

The throwing motion starts with the thrower swinging the hammer back-and-forth about two times to generate momentum. The thrower then makes three, four or (rarely) five full rotations using a complex heel-toe foot movement, spinning the hammer in a circular path and increasing its angular velocity with each rotation. Rather than spinning the hammer horizontally, it is instead spun in a plane that angles up towards the direction in which it will be launched. The thrower releases the hammer as its velocity is upward and toward the target.^[2]

Throws are made from a throwing circle. The thrower is not allowed to step outside the throwing circle before the hammer has landed and may only enter and exit from the rear of the throwing circle. The hammer must land within a 34.92º throwing sector that is centered on the throwing circle. The sector angle was chosen because it provides a sector whose bounds are easy to measure and lay out on a field (10 metres out from the center of the ring, 6 metres across).^[3][4] A violation of the rules results in a foul and the throw not being counted.^{[citation needed]}

25 March:

• Irving Baxter, American jumper
• Christina Cahill, British middle-distance runner
• María Caridad Colón, Cuban javelin thrower
• Stacy Dragila, American pole vaulter
• Muriel Hurtis-Houairi, French sprinter
• Abdalaati Iguider, Moroccan middle-distance runner
• Carl Kaufmann, German sprinter
• Stefka Kostadinova, Bulgarian high jumper
• Gunnar Nielsen, Danish middle-distance runner
• Aleksandr Puchkov, Soviet hurdler
• Irina Stankina, Russian race walker
• Mitchell Watt, Australian long jumper

• ... that Ethiopian long-distance runner Atsede Habtamu set a new course record at the Eindhoven Marathon with her first marathon victory earlier this month?
• ... that 2006 National Capital Marathon winner Amos Tirop Matui was disqualified and received financial compensation due to a misplaced barrier on the course?
• ... that Australian runner Michael Shelley lost his scholarship funding and suffered a broken leg in 2009, but went on to win a silver medal in the marathon at the 2010 Commonwealth Games?
• ... that Irene Kosgei, despite injuring her knee at a drinks station early in the women's marathon at the 2010 Commonwealth Games, edged compatriot Irene Mogaka to become the first Kenyan woman to win a Commonwealth marathon title?

Bikila in 1968

Shambel Abebe Bikila (Amharic: ሻምበል አበበ ቢቂላ; August 7, 1932 – October 25, 1973) was an Ethiopian marathon runner who was a back-to-back Olympic marathon champion. He was the first Ethiopian Olympic gold medalist, winning his and Africa's first gold medal at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome while running barefoot. At the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, he won his second gold medal. In turn, he became the first athlete to successfully defend an Olympic marathon title. In both victories, he ran in world record time.

Born in Shewa, Abebe moved to Addis Ababa around 1952 and joined the 5th Infantry Regiment of the Ethiopian Imperial Guard, an elite infantry division that safeguarded the emperor of Ethiopia. Abebe served in the Kagnew Battalion during Korean War.

Enlisting as a soldier before his athletic career, he rose to the rank of shambel (captain). Abebe participated in a total of sixteen marathons. He placed second on his first marathon in Addis Ababa, won twelve other races, and finished fifth in the 1963 Boston Marathon. In July 1967, he sustained the first of several sports-related leg injuries that prevented him from finishing his last two marathons. Abebe was a pioneer in long-distance running. Mamo Wolde, Juma Ikangaa, Tegla Loroupe, Paul Tergat, and Haile Gebrselassie—all recipients of the New York Road Runners' Abebe Bikila Award—are a few of the athletes who have followed in his footsteps to establish East Africa as a force in long-distance running.

On March 22, 1969, Abebe was paralysed due to a car accident. He regained some upper-body mobility, but he never walked again. While he was receiving medical treatment in England, Abebe competed in archery and table tennis at the 1970 Stoke Mandeville Games in London. Those games were an early predecessor of the Paralympic Games. He competed in both sports at a 1971 competition for disabled people in Norway and won its cross-country sleigh-riding event. Abebe died at age 41 in 1973 of a cerebral haemorrhage related to his accident four years earlier. He received a state funeral, and Emperor Haile Selassie declared a national day of mourning. Many schools, venues, and events, including Abebe Bikila Stadium in Addis Ababa, are named after him. He is the subject of biographies and films documenting his athletic career, and he is often featured in publications about the marathon and the Olympics. (Full article...)

• ... 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 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 every competitor at the 2021 British Athletics Marathon and 20km Walk Trial received a commemorative bonsai tree?
• ... 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 Athletics Championships, Daryll Neita became the first woman since 2010 to win both the 100- and 200-metre events?
• ... that at the 2022 British Indoor Athletics Championships, Lorraine Ugen equalled the championship long jump record?
• ... that for the first time this century, this year's British Athletics Championships were not broadcast on live television?

• WikiProject Athletics
• WikiProject Sports

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