The Father of Sports - Athleticism

The sport of athleticism is as old as the history of man. Currently it is more than a sport, today it brings together several disciplines grouped into races, jumps, pitches, combined events and marches. So we will tell the story of its evolution and history.

History of the track and the field and the origins of the sport

According to some literary traditions, this was the only athletic event of the games for the first 13 Olympic festivals and the birth of athletics.

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Other indications, both literary and archaeological, suggest that the games might have existed in Olympia long before this date, perhaps as early as the tenth or ninth century BC. In Olympia a series of bronze tripods have been found, some of which appear dated around the 9th century BC. C., and it has also been suggested that these tripods can be prizes for some of the first events at Olympia.

From the year 776 a. C., the games were held in Olympia every four years for almost twelve centuries. Other sporting events were gradually added until, around the fifth century BC. C., the religious festival consisted of a five-day program. The athletic events included three foot races (stadio, diaulos and dolichos) as well as the pentathlon (five contests: disco, javelin, long jump, wrestling and footwork), pugme (boxing), pale (fight), pankration, and the hoplitodromos. Throughout the history of the Olympic Games other events have been added, both equestrian and human. Equestrian events, held at the racecourse, were an important part of the athletic program of the ancient Olympic Games and for the fifth century BC. C. included tethrippon and keles.

The marathon and its relationship with athletics.

The race commemorates the race of Pheidippides, a former "day runner" who brought the news of the Persian landing in the Marathon of 490 BC. C. to Sparta (a distance of 149 miles) to get help for the battle. According to the Greek historian Heródoto, of the V century a. C., Pheidippides delivered the news to the Spartans the next day. The distance of the modern marathon was standardized at 26 miles and 385 yards or 42,195 kilometers in 1908 when the Olympic Games were held in London. The distance was the exact measurement between Windsor Castle, the start of the race, and the finish line inside White City Stadium.

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What is athletics?
Athletics, (from Greek [athlos], "fight"), is a sport that includes a group of disciplines grouped into races, jumps, throws, combined events. and march. It is considered the art of overcoming the performance of opponents in elements such as speed or resistance, distance or height.

What is track and field athletics?
The sport of athletics can be done on tracks that can be covered or outdoors. In them you can do speed races, obstacles, relays, jumps in height, length, javelin throw, disc, weight, marches, marathons, among others.

Athletics on the continent of America
Track and field athletics in America dates back to the 1860s. The Intercollegiate Association of Amateur Athletes of America of the United States celebrated the first university careers in 1873, and in 1888 the Amateur Athletic Union (which governed the sport for almost century) celebrated its first championships.

As the track and field developed as a modern sport, an important issue for all athletes was their status as amateurs. For many years the track and athletic field was considered a purely amateur sport and the athletes could not accept training money or cash prizes.

Beginning in the 1920s, the reach of the track and the field widened. The first NCAA national championships were held for men in 1921, and the track and field of women's athletics became part of the Olympic Games in 1928.

The new rivalries of athletics
In 1952, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) sent its first Olympic team to the Summer Games in Helsinki, Finland, where the team won several athletic medals. For the next 30 years, teams from the United States and the Soviet Union fought in one of the longest and most competitive rivalries in the sport.

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The women's track fought for widespread acceptance until the 1970s, when the track and the field as a whole enjoyed a popularity boom. During that time, the International Track Association (ITA), based in the United States, organized a professional track circuit. The company, although popular with fans, filed for bankruptcy after several years.

Few athletes wanted to participate in the ITA competitions because the athletes were receiving larger illegal payments for appearing at the amateur meetings that the legitimate professionals were doing on the new circuit. Many athletes also rejected the ITA competition because it disqualified them to participate in future Olympic Games.

The Athletics Congress now regulates sport in the United States; The International Amateur Athletics Federation (IAAF) sanctions international competition. The track and the field have been the centerpiece of the Summer Olympics since its rebirth in 1896, and the international professional career, begun in the 1970s, has had limited success.

Curiosities of athleticism

In the early days it was customary for athletes to compete with their clothes tucked, but Coroebus ran naked when he won the short foot race at Olympia.

The sprint (two hundred meters: 200m) was the only competitive event in the first 13 Olympic Games.
If heavy weights are placed on a palm wood board, pressing it until it can no longer support the load, does not yield down, bending concavely. Instead, it rises to counteract the weight, with a convex curve. Therefore, according to Plutarco, the palm has been chosen to represent the victory in athletic competitions; The nature of the wood is such that it does not yield to pressure.

Sometimes, athletes had their penis tied to help freedom of movement. The foreskin was dragged forward and tied with a rope called cynodesme, which literally means "dog leash".

Chian was angry at his slave and said, "I'm not going to send you to the mill, I'm going to take you to Olympia," and apparently considered a much more bitter punishment to be a roasted spectator in the rays of the sun than to be work grinding flour in a mill.

A corpse was declared the winner. Arrhachion was fighting in the Olympia final. While his opponent squeezed his neck, he broke one of his opponent's toes. Arrhachion died suffocated as his opponent because of pain in his toe.
Marcus once ran in the armor race. He was still running at midnight, and the stadium authorities locked him up because it was one of the stone statues. When they opened again, the first round was over.

When a humble and inferior boxer confronts a famous opponent who has never been defeated, the spectators immediately place themselves on the weaker figure's side, shouting encouragement and hitting him when he does so.
Euripides competed as a boxer at the Isthmian and Nemean Games, and was crowned the winner.

If they were accused of professionalism, athletes could be banned from competing for life. In 1913, the American Jim Thorpe was stripped of his 1912 Olympic victories in the decathlon and the pentathlon and was barred from participating in other competitions after learning that he had played semi-professional baseball. (In 1982, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) posthumously reinstated Thorpe's amateur status and his two Olympic medals.!