Leisure Kicks - The essencial sport and leisure guide

Athletics is one of the oldest sports known to man. The ‘stadium’ race, a sprint of around 192 metres, featured in the ancient Olympic Games from 776 BC onwards. As time progressed, throwing and jumping events were included in the games. Similar events also began sprouting up across Europe as the centuries rolled on, including in Britain. The modern mode of competing athletics came together at the end of the 1800s. The earliest recorded meets date back to 1840 in England, but specialised competitions didn’t begin to thrive until the end of the century. 

Thus, athletics were a central part of the first modern Olympic Games in 1896, which helped increase its popularity even more. The International Association of Athletics Federation was formed in 1912 and eventually establishing many World Championship events from the late 1970s – meaning that the Olympics was no longer the one highlight of the sport’s calendar. Women’s events appeared for the first time in 1928 and the 1960s saw a huge boom in the sport across developing countries, with African and Caribbean countries entering with success. Today athletics is the largest single sport at the Games with 47 events. It’s even bigger outside of the Games as well. Today, the IAAF governs over nearly 50 outdoor and 25 indoor events.

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Historic footage of the Stockholm Olympics in 1912
Wikimedia Commons