Track and Field & Athletic Sports

TRACK & FIELD

Track and field (also known as track and field sports and track and field athletics) is a sport comprising various competitive athletic contests based around the activities of running, jumping and throwing. The name of the sport derives from the venue for the competitions: astadium which features an oval running track surrounding a grassy area. The throwing and jumping events generally take place within the central enclosed area.

Track and field is one of the sports which (along with road running, cross-country running and race walking) makes up the umbrella sport ofathletics. It is under the banner of athletics that the two most prestigious international track field competitions are held: the Athletics competition at the Olympic Games and the IAAF World Championships in Athletics. The International Association of Athletics Federations is the international governing body for track and field.

Track and field events are generally individual sports with athletes challenging each other to decide a single victor. The racing events are won by the athlete with the fastest time, while the jumping and throwing events are won by the athlete who has achieved the greatest distance or height in the contest. The running events are categorised as sprints, middle and long-distance events, relays, and hurdling. Regular jumping events include long jump, triple jump, high jump and pole vault, while the most common throwing events are shot put, javelin, discus andhammer. There are also "combined events", such as heptathlon and decathlon, in which athletes compete in a number of the above events.

Records are kept of the best performances in specific events, at world and national levels, right down to a personal level. However, if athletes are deemed to have violated the event's rules or regulations, they are disqualified from the competition and their marks are erased.

ATHLETICS

Athletics is a collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking. The most common types of athletics competitions are track and field, road running, cross country running, and race walking. The simplicity of the competitions, and the lack of a need for expensive equipment, makes athletics one of the most commonly competed sports in the world.

Organised athletics are traced back to the Ancient Olympic Games from 776 BC, and most modern events are conducted by the member clubs of the International Association of Athletics Federations. The athletics meeting forms the backbone of the modern Summer Olympics, and other leading international meetings include the IAAF World Championships and World Indoor Championships.

Physical Education & Health

A child who is truly healthy is healthy in body, mind, and spirit. Physical health means more than just the absence of disease. It means having a body that is strong, flexible, and coordinated, and having the skills to use that body in joyful ways. If you watch three- and four-year-old children, many of them already demonstrate these fundamentals of physical health. But as children get older and spend long hours sitting in schools and doing homework, physical fitness declines, and many of them slip into an inactive, unhealthy lifestyle.

In the United States, as well as many other places in the world, there's a growing awareness of the health risks posed by inactivity and being overweight. It is commonplace for people to talk about an epidemic of childhood obesity. One cause may be a decline in physical education in schools. In the past, it was common for public schools to require daily physical education. Recently, however, the number of children who have daily P.E. has dropped, so that, as of 1996, only 19 percent of high school students have at least 20 minutes of physical education a day, and fewer than half of all middle schools require three years of P.E.

Why is physical education important?

In the past, the focus of P.E. classes was to train children to participate in competitive sports. More recently, the focus has shifted to developing healthy habits and general fitness. The hope is that children will adopt regular physical activity as a part of their lifestyle. There are four main goals of modern physical education:

• to improve physical fitness,


• to shape positive attitudes towards physical activity,


• to give children the skills they need to enjoy different physical activities,


• and to help them understand the importance of regular exercise and the connection between physical health and general well-being.

The benefits of physical education are many:

• it’s a link to good health > The value of physical fitness can never be overstated. It’s only in physical educational classrooms that students learn the value of taking care of themselves thru proper grooming, healthy eating and regular exercise.

• Increased physical fitness > Fitness includes cardiovascular endurance, as well as strength, flexibility, and coordination. According to a 1995 American heart association report, children five years and older should have 30 minutes a day of at least moderate physical activity (walking briskly, for example), and 30 minutes of vigorous physical activity (such as running or playing basketball) at least three times a week.




• Increased attention and improved mood > Many studies show that moderate to vigorous exercise improves attention, both in children and adults. Children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder are typically less "hyper" in class if they have regular physical exercise. Regular exercise is a safe and effective treatment for mild degrees of depression, and it also seems to boost the mood of people who aren't depressed.




• A sampling of activities > Exposure to a variety of different physical activities--such as swimming, running, gymnastics, and other sports--helps children discover the activities that most appeal to them. With increasing coordination and endurance, they tend to enjoy the activities even more, and are more likely to continue regular activity.




• Social skills > Children learn sportsmanship, teamwork, tolerance for others who may not be as skilled as they are--and even for their own limitations.




• Self-esteem > For children who have academic difficulties or learning disabilities, physical education provides an opportunity to excel and to build up their . This is important in many arenas, including tackling tough academic tasks.




• Self-expression > For many children, vigorous, skillful physical activity provides an important avenue for self-expression. While some children draw pictures or write in their diaries, others find an outlet for powerful emotions in more physical ways. Children benefit greatly from a P.E. teacher or coach who understands this emotional side of physical activity and sports, and who forms a supportive relationship with the child.

What you can do?

> You can advocate for continued funding of physical education programs at your child's school. Just as important, you can make physical activity a regular part of your day, and perhaps one that you share with your child. In this way, you set a good example and reinforce the important physical lessons that your child--if she's lucky!--may be learning in school.

What Is Sports

• A sport is an organized, competitive, and skillful physical activity requiring commitment and fair play, in which a winner can be defined by objective means. It is governed by a set of rules or customs. In a sport the key factors are the physical capabilitiesand skills of the competitor when determining the outcome (winning or losing). The physical activity involves the movement of people, animals and/or a variety of objects such as balls and machines or equipment. In contrast, games such as card gamesand board games, though these could be called mind sports and some are recognized as Olympic sports, require primarily mental skills and only mental physical involvement. Non-competitive activities, for example as jogging or playing dick catch, are usually classified as forms of recreation.

• Physical events such as scoring goals or crossing a line first often define the result of a sport. However, the degree of skill and performance in some sports such as diving, dressage and figure skating is judged according to well-defined criteria. This is in contrast with other judged activities such as beauty pageants and body building, where skill does not have to be shown and the criteria are not as well defined.

• Records are kept and updated for most sports at the highest levels, while failures and accomplishments are widely announced insport news. Sports are most often played just for fun or for the simple fact that people need exercise to stay in good physical condition. However, professional sport is a major source of entertainment.

• While practices may vary, sports participants are expected to display good sportsmanship, and observe standards of conduct such as being respectful of opponents and officials, and congratulating the winner when losing.

History of Sport

Sporting events and changes are influenced by the economic, social and political situations in place at the time. In sociology, there are a number of approaches to the study of sport - Functionalism, Marxism, Social action and Interactionism. Each has a different view on society, the place of sport in society and hence the changes in sport over the centuries.

Medieval period (1200 - 1485)

• People had little time or energy for recreational activities
• Leisure time activities were originally confined to feast days
• Games were local in nature, each village having its own particular activities for feast days
• From time to time the government banned traditional activities in favour of archery training

Tudor and Stuart period (1485 - 1714)

• Traditional folk games and activities flourished in Tudor times
• Puritanism greatly reduced the opportunities to play and types of activity allowed
• After the restoration in 1660, traditional activities were revived
• Sport moved away from its former links with merrymaking and lawlessness

Hanoverian period (1714 - 1790)

• Play and sport were largely ignored by the government
• People of all classes enjoyed their leisure to the full
• Increasing industrialisation demanded regular working patterns
• There was some pressure for Sunday to be a day of rest
• Large gatherings for sport often meant social disorder
• Regular, organised, rule-governed sport on a national scale emerged

Changing times (1790 -1830)

• Traditional sport was under attack from all sides
• Factory owners wanted a regular working week
• Property owners feared the damage caused by large crowds
• Churches criticised idleness, drunkenness and slack morality
• Commercialisation of sport developed, especially in horse racing, cricket and prize fighting

Victorian Sport (1830 - 1901)

• Sport developed in the context of industrial capitalism and class inequality
• Sport became linked to a moral code defined by the middle classes:
• it was accepted that sport developed character and morality
• competition had to be fair and rule-governed with similar conditions for all players
• sport was to be played, not for reward, but for its own sake
• Nationwide sport developed through the influence of technology, the public schools and the national governing bodies
• For the masses, Saturday afternoon free from work was the turning point, enabling them to play and spectate
• Amateur and professional sport became increasingly separated
• Working class sport in school was limited largely to drill and therapeutic gymnastics

Edwardian Sport (1901 - 1918)

• Organised sporting involvement expanded rapidly across all classes
• Increasingly, the different classes played their sport separately
• Public school athleticism still dominated sport
• Male working class influence increased, notably in football in England and rugby in Wales. However, working class women were largely excluded from sporting involvement
• Commercialisation of sport continued with large numbers of spectators and increased numbers of professionals in major sports
• Sport was increasingly a matter of national concern

Between the world wars (1918 - 1940)

• Steady growth in sports participation continued for all classes of society, although working class worm were least involved
• Most sports were still class orientated
• Football (in all its versions) continued to increase in popularity and by the 1930s, was the most popular sporting activity
• Lack of facilities became an issue, particularly when national teams failed
• There was little government involvement in sport, apart from physical education in schools
• School physical education moved from therapeutic exercises to creative physical training
• Commercialisation of sport expanded rapidly, especially the provision for spectator sport
• Sport, as a part of a national culture, now extended to the majority of the population

British Sport (1940 - Today)

• An improved standard of living has enabled greater participation in sport for most social groups
• Amateur administrators only reluctantly allowed commercial forces to enter the world of sport
• Professional sportspeople had a long battle to be given fair rewards
• Television coverage increased in importance for sport and the sponsors
• The definition of amateurism for competition was replaced by the concept of eligibility
• Central government involvement in sport has always been fragmentary
• There has been a long standing under funding of sport by central government
• An advisory Sports Council was established in 1965 and the independent executive Sports Council in 1972
• Physical education was established in the 1944 Act for its educational value
• The movement approach conflicted with traditional games teaching
• Physical education moved away from educational values towards physical recreation and more recently towards health-related fitness
• Various academic qualifications in physical education stimulated scrutiny of the subject (for example, BEd, CSE, GCSE, A-Level)
• Physical education is now established in the national curriculum as a foundation subject
• There has been an increasing influence of market forces on schools, physical education, sports facilities and sport.