With about 50 days to go for London Olympics, let’s learn some more about sports played at Olympics.

How much do you think about Athletics? If not much, then read this.

Athletics is collection of sporting events that involves competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking. 
Athletics perfectly follows the Olympic motto of ‘Citius, Altius, Fortius’  which means ‘Faster, Higher, Stronger’ since it requires athletes to run faster, throw further, jump higher and leap longer than their competitors. 

There are four main events in the Athletics competition:
1. Track events: are sprints, middle distance and long distance events, relays,the hurdles and steeplechase. They take place  in a stadium which has an oval running track. 
2. Field events: can be divided into throwing (for example, Shot Put) and jumping (High Jump). The throwing and jumping events  take place within the grass field area enclosed by an oval running track in stadium. 
3. Combined events: are a combination of both track and field events. These are the Decathlon for men (10 events) and the Heptathlon for women (7 events). Traditionally, the title of “World’s Greatest Athlete” has been given to the man who wins the decathlon.
4. Road events: are cycling, marathon and race walks. 

Athletics is the largest single sport at the Olympic Games.

Interesting  Athletics Jargon :-

Anchor– a team’s final runner in a relay race.

Cage – the area from which competitors throw a discus or hammer. 

False start – when an athlete moves off the starting blocks either before the gun has fired or within 0.10 sec of the gun firing.