Portal:Sport of athletics

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...)

Chariots of Fire is a 1981 British historical sports drama film directed by Hugh Hudson, written by Colin Welland and produced by David Puttnam. It is based on the true story of two British athletes in the 1924 Olympics: Eric Liddell, a devout Scottish Christian who runs for the glory of God, and Harold Abrahams, an English Jew who runs to overcome prejudice. Ben Cross and Ian Charleson star as Abrahams and Liddell, alongside Nigel Havers, Ian Holm, John Gielgud, Lindsay Anderson, Cheryl Campbell, Alice Krige, Brad Davis and Dennis Christopher in supporting roles. Kenneth Branagh makes his debut in a minor role.

Chariots of Fire was nominated for seven Academy Awards and won four, including Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay and Best Original Score for Vangelis' electronic theme tune. At the 35th British Academy Film Awards, the film was nominated in 11 categories and won in three, including Best Film. It is ranked 19th in the British Film Institute's list of Top 100 British films. (Full article...)

15 July:

• Enrique Figuerola, Cuban sprinter
• Hector Hogan, Australian sprinter
• Serhiy Lebid, Ukrainian distance runner
• Éloyse Lesueur, French long jumper
• Natalya Sadova, Russian discus thrower
• Toshihiko Seko, Japanese distance runner
• Erik Wilén, Finnish sprinter and hurdler

• ... that Erica Larson, a chemist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, won the Pikes Peak mountain marathon five times in six years between 1999 and 2004, more than any other woman in the event's history?
• ... that all four deaths in the thirty annual Chicago Marathons have occurred in the last ten years?
• ... that wind assistance has caused the non-ratification of many potential world records in athletics?
• ... that Patrick Ivuti's photo finish victory in the 2007 Chicago Marathon, one of the five major marathons, was his first marathon victory?

Pistorius in 2011

Oscar Leonard Carl Pistorius (/pɪˈstɔːriəs/ pist-OR-ee-əs, Afrikaans: [pəˈstuəriœs]; born 22 November 1986) is a South African former professional sprinter and convicted of culpable homicide. He was convicted of culpable homicide of his then girlfriend. Both of his feet were amputated when he was 11 months old as a result of a congenital defect; he was born missing the outside of both feet and both fibulas. Pistorius ran in both nondisabled sprint events and in sprint events for below-knee amputees. He was the 10th athlete to compete at both the Paralympic Games and Olympic Games.

After becoming a Paralympic champion, Pistorius attempted to enter nondisabled international competitions, over persistent objections by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and arguments that his artificial limbs gave an unfair advantage. Pistorius prevailed in this legal dispute. At the 2011 World Championships in Athletics, Pistorius was the first amputee to win a nondisabled world track medal. At the 2012 Summer Olympics, Pistorius was the first double-leg amputee participant.

On 14 February 2013, Pistorius shot and killed his girlfriend, paralegal and model Reeva Steenkamp, in his Pretoria home. He claimed he had mistaken Steenkamp for an intruder hiding in the bathroom. He was arrested and charged with murder. At his trial the following year, Pistorius was found not guilty of murder, but guilty of culpable homicide. He received a five-year prison sentence for culpable homicide and a concurrent three-year suspended sentence for a separate reckless endangerment conviction both in October 2014.

Pistorius was temporarily released on house arrest in October 2015 while the case was presented on appeal to a panel at the Supreme Court of Appeal of South Africa, which overturned the culpable homicide verdict and convicted him of murder. In July 2016, Judge Thokozile Masipa extended Pistorius's sentence to six years. On appeal by the state for a longer prison sentence, the Supreme Court of Appeal increased the prison term to a total of 15 years less time served. Pistorius was released on parole on 5 January 2024 after serving a total of 8.5 years in prison, in addition to 7 months of house arrest. (Full article...)

• ... 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 when the Oakland Athletics promoted Bill McNulty to the major leagues, they needed forest rangers to find him?
• ... 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 Marthe Yankurije, who dropped out of school during her fourth year of secondary school, competed at the 2020 Summer Olympics?
• ... that the men's 100 metres event at the 2023 British Athletics Championships was run in heavy rain?
• ... that at the 2022 British Indoor Athletics Championships, Lorraine Ugen equalled the championship long jump record?
• ... 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 at the 2022 British Athletics Championships, Daryll Neita became the first woman since 2010 to win both the 100- and 200-metre events?

• WikiProject Athletics
• WikiProject Sports

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