Athletics is the oldest sport on the Olympic programme and the broadest. It is not one contest but a family of them: running races on a track, jumping and throwing in the field, long races on the road, and race walking. The common thread is that every event is decided by a measurement — a time, a distance or a height — which makes the sport easy to follow and almost impossible to argue with.

How the Sport Works

Athletics is governed worldwide by World Athletics, the body founded in 1912 as the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF). Its events fall into four groups: track, field, road running and race walking.

Track events are the running races, divided by distance. Sprints are the short, explosive races: the 100 metres, 200 metres and 400 metres. Middle-distance races cover 800 metres and 1500 metres. Long-distance races on the track are the 5000 metres and 10,000 metres, along with the 3000 metres steeplechase, in which runners clear barriers and a water jump. Relay races — the 4x100 metres and 4x400 metres — add baton passing to the sprint distances, and hurdle races put barriers on the track at sprint and 400-metre distances.

Field events test how far or how high an athlete can jump or throw. The jumps are the long jump, triple jump, high jump and pole vault. The throws are the shot put, discus, hammer throw and javelin. In the throwing and horizontal jumping events, athletes usually get a set number of attempts and their best legal effort counts.

Road running takes the sport out of the stadium. The most famous road event is the marathon, run over 42.195 kilometres, with the half-marathon at 21.0975 kilometres and shorter road races at 5 and 10 kilometres. Cross-country running, raced over natural terrain, is the sport's off-road cousin.

Race walking is the discipline with the strictest technique rule in the sport: one foot must be in contact with the ground at all times, and the supporting leg must be straight from the moment of contact until it passes under the body. Judges watch for infringements and can disqualify walkers who break the rules. Championship race walking is contested at 20 kilometres and 35 kilometres, with the marathon distance added as a championship event in recent years.

Scoring: Times, Distances and Points

Most athletics events are decided by a single measurement. In races, the fastest time wins. In field events, the longest throw or jump, or the highest clearance, wins. There is no judging panel awarding style marks — the stopwatch and the tape measure decide.

The exceptions are the combined events, where athletes compete across several disciplines and score points for each performance. Men contest the decathlon, ten events over two days; women contest the heptathlon, seven events over two days. In each event, a performance converts to points on a scoring table, and the athlete with the highest total wins. The combined events reward versatility more than any single specialism.

In championship track events, heats decide who reaches the final, with the fastest finishers advancing. In the field, a qualification round sets a standard: athletes who reach it, or the best performers overall, go through to the final.

Formats and Major Competitions

Athletics has been part of the modern Olympic Games since the first edition in 1896, and it remains the centrepiece of every summer Games. The World Athletics Championships are the sport's own standalone global title, held every two years since 1983. There are also world indoor championships, world cross-country championships and world road running championships.

The Diamond League is the sport's annual elite circuit: a series of meetings held through the season where the world's best athletes compete for points and prize money, building toward a final. Continental championships, such as the European Championships, and national championships complete the calendar, and the World Marathon Majors bring together the biggest city marathons, including Berlin, Boston and London.

A Brief History

Running, jumping and throwing are as old as organised sport itself, and athletics traces its modern form to the nineteenth century, when the first clubs and codified rules appeared in Britain and the first modern Olympics revived the ancient Greek programme. The governing body was founded in 1912, the same era in which standardised track distances and world records began to be recognised.

The sport has grown steadily since: women's events were added progressively through the twentieth century, the World Championships arrived in 1983, and the Diamond League replaced the old Golden League circuit in 2010. The marathon, meanwhile, has become a mass-participation phenomenon, with tens of thousands of runners lining up in the major city races each year.

How to Follow It

The easiest way into athletics is through the Diamond League and the major championships. The 100 metres is the sport's marquee event — nine or ten seconds that decide the fastest human alive — but the middle distances often produce the most tactical racing, and the field events reward patient watching as the lead changes with each round of attempts.

For the road, the marathon majors are the ones to circle: the drama is in the pacing, the fuelling and the final kilometres, where races are won and lost in minutes. And in the combined events, the leaderboard tells the story — two days, ten or seven disciplines, and one athlete who can do a bit of everything.