Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
well speaking about frenship chec k out this 
picture all about love n frenship
u cant find the any better from a mother than this
when there r lots of obstacles there r no altewrnative
cutest of all 
Monday, August 4, 2008
equipment and systems
metal wire, terrestrial and satellite radio, and optical fibre—employed in the transmission of electromagnetic signals.
Every telecommunications system involves the transmission of an information-bearing electromagnetic signal through a physical medium that separates the transmitter from the receiver. All transmitted signals are to some extent degraded by the environment through which they propagate. Signal degradation can take many forms, but generally it falls into three types: noise, distortion, and attenuation. Noise is the presence of random, unpredictable, and undesirable electromagnetic emissions that can mask the intended information signal. Distortion is any undesired change in the amplitude or phase of any component of an information signal that causes a change in the overall waveform of the signal. Both noise and distortion are commonly introduced by all transmission media, and they both result in errors in reception. The relative impact of these factors on reliable communication depends on the rate of information transmission, on the desired fidelity upon reception, and on whether communication must occur in “real time”—i.e., as in two-way voice telephony and video teleconferencing.
Various modulating and encoding schemes have been devised to provide protection against the errors caused by channel distortion and channel noise. These techniques are described in telecommunication: Analog-to-digital conversion, Channel encoding, and Modulation. In addition to these signal-processing techniques, protection against reception errors can be provided by boosting the power of the transmitter, thus increasing the signal-to-noise ratio (the ratio of signal power to noise power). However, even powerful signals suffer some degree of attenuation, or reduction in power, as they pass through the transmission medium. The principal cause of power loss is dissipation, the conversion of part of the electromagnetic energy to another form of energy such as heat. In communications media, channel attenuation is typically expressed in decibels (dB) per unit distance. Attenuation of zero decibels means that the signal is passed without loss; three decibels means that the power of the signal decreases by one-half. The plot of channel attenuation as the signal frequency is varied is known as the attenuation spectrum, while the average attenuation over the entire frequency range of a transmitted signal is defined as the attenuation coefficient. Channel attenuation is an important factor in the use of each transmission medium.
Wire transmission
In wire transmission an information-bearing electromagnetic wave is guided along a wire conductor to a receiver. Propagation of the wave is always accompanied by a flow of electric current through the conductor. Since all practical conductor materials are characterized by some electrical resistance, part of the electric current is always lost by conversion to heat, which is radiated from the wire. This dissipative loss leads to attenuation of the electromagnetic signal, and the amount of attenuation increases linearly with increasing distance between the transmitter and the receiver.
Wire media
Most modern wire transmission is conducted through the metallic-pair circuit, in which a bundled pair of conductors is used to provide a forward current path and a return current path. The most common conductor is hard-drawn copper wire, which has the benefits of low electrical resistance, high tensile strength, and high resistance to corrosion. The basic types of wire media found in telecommunications are single-wire lines, open-wire pairs, multipair cables, and coaxial cables. They are described below.
Single-wire line
In the early days of telegraphy, a single uninsulated iron wire, strung above ground, was used as a transmission line. Return conduction was provided through an earth ground. This arrangement, known as the single-wire line, was quite satisfactory for the low-frequency transmission requirements of manual telegraph signaling (only about 400 hertz). However, for transmission of higher-frequency signals, such as speech (approximately 3,000 hertz), single-wire lines suffer from high attenuation, radiation losses, and a sensitivity to stray currents induced by random fluctuations in earth ground potentials or by external interference. One common cause of external interference is natural electrical disturbances, such as lightning or auroral activity; another is cross talk, an unwanted transferral of signals from one circuit to another owing to inductive coupling between two or more closely spaced wire lines.
Open-wire pair
In order to overcome the insufficiencies of single-wire transmission, the early telephone industry shifted to a two-wire system called the open-wire pair. In an open-wire pair the forward and return conductors are copper wires that run in parallel and in a common plane. The parallel arrangement produces a balanced transmission circuit that has low sensitivity to faraway interference sources such as lightning. Immunity to such interference is possible because both of the conductors in the open-wire pair, by running in parallel and in the same plane, are at essentially equal distances from the interference source. The source therefore induces equal currents in the forward and return paths, and these currents are effectively canceled out at the receiving end of the line.
It is much more difficult to eliminate cross talk between adjacent open-wire pairs than it is to eliminate interference from a faraway source. In order to ensure equal forward and return currents, all adjacent pairs have to be balanced with respect to one another. In early low-density telephone lines, cross talk was reduced through an ingenious and complicated method of periodically transposing the relative positions of the forward and return conductors in each pair. Transposing the wires equalized the relative positions of adjacent circuits as well as the currents that they induced in one another.
Multipair cable
• Wire transmission media
In multipair cable anywhere from a half-dozen to several thousand twisted-pair circuits are bundled into a common sheath (see Figure 1). The twisted pair was developed in the late 19th century in order to reduce cross talk in multipair cables. In a process similar to that employed with open-wire pairs (described above), the forward and return conductors of each circuit in a multipair cable are braided together, equalizing the relative positions of all the circuits in the cable and thus equalizing currents induced by cross talk.
For many high-speed and high-density applications, such as computer networking, each wire pair is sheathed in metallic foil. Sheathing produces a balanced circuit, called a shielded pair, that benefits from greatly reduced radiation losses and immunity to cross talk interference.
Coaxial cable
• Wire transmission media
By enclosing a single conducting wire in a dielectric insulator and an outer conducting shell, an electrically shielded transmission circuit called coaxial cable is obtained. In a coaxial cable the electromagnetic field propagates within the dielectric insulator, while the associated current flow is restricted to adjacent surfaces of the inner and outer conductors. As a result, coaxial cable has very low radiation losses and low susceptibility to external interference.
In order to reduce weight and make the cable flexible, tinned copper or aluminum foil is commonly used for the conducting shell. Most coaxial cables employ a lightweight polyethylene or wood pulp insulator; although air would be a more effective dielectric, the solid material serves as a mechanical support for the inner conductor.
Applications of wire
Because of the high signal attenuation inherent in wire, transmission over distances greater than a few kilometres requires the use of regularly spaced repeaters to amplify, restore, and retransmit the signal. Transmission lines also require impedance matching at the transmitter or receiver in order to reduce echo-creating reflections. Impedance matching is accomplished in long-distance telephone cables by attaching a wire coil to each end of the line whose electrical impedance, measured in ohms, is equal to the characteristic impedance of the transmission line. A familiar example of impedance matching is the transformer used on older television sets to match a 75-ohm coaxial cable to antenna terminals made for a 300-ohm twin-lead connection.
Coaxial cable is classified as either flexible or rigid. Standard flexible coaxial cable is manufactured with characteristic impedance ranging from 50 to 92 ohms. The high attenuation of flexible cable restricts its utility to short distances—e.g., spans of less than one kilometre, or approximately a half-mile—unless signal repeaters are used. For high-capacity long-distance transmission, a more efficient wire medium is rigid coaxial cable, which was favoured for telephone transmission until it was supplanted by optical fibres in the 1980s. A state-of-the-art rigid coaxial telephone cable is the transatlantic SG series cable; the third cable in the series, called TAT-6, was laid in 1976 by the American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T) between the east coast of the United States and the west coast of France. Capable of carrying 4,200 two-way voice circuits, the SG system has solid-state repeaters embedded in the cable housing at intervals of 9.5 kilometres (5.75 miles) and has equalizers that can be remotely adjusted to compensate for time-varying transmission characteristics.
Long-distance telephone cable is being phased out in favour of higher-performance optical fibre cable. Nevertheless, the last generation of long-distance telephone cable is still used to carry voice communication as well as broadband audio and video signals for cable television providers. For short-distance applications, where medium bandwidth and low-cost point-to-point communication is required, twisted pair and coaxial cable remain the standard. Voice-grade twisted pair is used for local subscriber loops in the public switched telephone network, and flexible coaxial cable is commonly used for cable television connections from curbside to home. Flexible coaxial cable also has been used for local area network interconnections, but it has largely been replaced with lighter and lower-cost data-grade twisted pair and optical fibre.
equipment and systems
metal wire, terrestrial and satellite radio, and optical fibre—employed in the transmission of electromagnetic signals.
Every telecommunications system involves the transmission of an information-bearing electromagnetic signal through a physical medium that separates the transmitter from the receiver. All transmitted signals are to some extent degraded by the environment through which they propagate. Signal degradation can take many forms, but generally it falls into three types: noise, distortion, and attenuation. Noise is the presence of random, unpredictable, and undesirable electromagnetic emissions that can mask the intended information signal. Distortion is any undesired change in the amplitude or phase of any component of an information signal that causes a change in the overall waveform of the signal. Both noise and distortion are commonly introduced by all transmission media, and they both result in errors in reception. The relative impact of these factors on reliable communication depends on the rate of information transmission, on the desired fidelity upon reception, and on whether communication must occur in “real time”—i.e., as in two-way voice telephony and video teleconferencing.
Various modulating and encoding schemes have been devised to provide protection against the errors caused by channel distortion and channel noise. These techniques are described in telecommunication: Analog-to-digital conversion, Channel encoding, and Modulation. In addition to these signal-processing techniques, protection against reception errors can be provided by boosting the power of the transmitter, thus increasing the signal-to-noise ratio (the ratio of signal power to noise power). However, even powerful signals suffer some degree of attenuation, or reduction in power, as they pass through the transmission medium. The principal cause of power loss is dissipation, the conversion of part of the electromagnetic energy to another form of energy such as heat. In communications media, channel attenuation is typically expressed in decibels (dB) per unit distance. Attenuation of zero decibels means that the signal is passed without loss; three decibels means that the power of the signal decreases by one-half. The plot of channel attenuation as the signal frequency is varied is known as the attenuation spectrum, while the average attenuation over the entire frequency range of a transmitted signal is defined as the attenuation coefficient. Channel attenuation is an important factor in the use of each transmission medium.
Wire transmission
In wire transmission an information-bearing electromagnetic wave is guided along a wire conductor to a receiver. Propagation of the wave is always accompanied by a flow of electric current through the conductor. Since all practical conductor materials are characterized by some electrical resistance, part of the electric current is always lost by conversion to heat, which is radiated from the wire. This dissipative loss leads to attenuation of the electromagnetic signal, and the amount of attenuation increases linearly with increasing distance between the transmitter and the receiver.
Wire media
Most modern wire transmission is conducted through the metallic-pair circuit, in which a bundled pair of conductors is used to provide a forward current path and a return current path. The most common conductor is hard-drawn copper wire, which has the benefits of low electrical resistance, high tensile strength, and high resistance to corrosion. The basic types of wire media found in telecommunications are single-wire lines, open-wire pairs, multipair cables, and coaxial cables. They are described below.
Single-wire line
In the early days of telegraphy, a single uninsulated iron wire, strung above ground, was used as a transmission line. Return conduction was provided through an earth ground. This arrangement, known as the single-wire line, was quite satisfactory for the low-frequency transmission requirements of manual telegraph signaling (only about 400 hertz). However, for transmission of higher-frequency signals, such as speech (approximately 3,000 hertz), single-wire lines suffer from high attenuation, radiation losses, and a sensitivity to stray currents induced by random fluctuations in earth ground potentials or by external interference. One common cause of external interference is natural electrical disturbances, such as lightning or auroral activity; another is cross talk, an unwanted transferral of signals from one circuit to another owing to inductive coupling between two or more closely spaced wire lines.
Open-wire pair
In order to overcome the insufficiencies of single-wire transmission, the early telephone industry shifted to a two-wire system called the open-wire pair. In an open-wire pair the forward and return conductors are copper wires that run in parallel and in a common plane. The parallel arrangement produces a balanced transmission circuit that has low sensitivity to faraway interference sources such as lightning. Immunity to such interference is possible because both of the conductors in the open-wire pair, by running in parallel and in the same plane, are at essentially equal distances from the interference source. The source therefore induces equal currents in the forward and return paths, and these currents are effectively canceled out at the receiving end of the line.
It is much more difficult to eliminate cross talk between adjacent open-wire pairs than it is to eliminate interference from a faraway source. In order to ensure equal forward and return currents, all adjacent pairs have to be balanced with respect to one another. In early low-density telephone lines, cross talk was reduced through an ingenious and complicated method of periodically transposing the relative positions of the forward and return conductors in each pair. Transposing the wires equalized the relative positions of adjacent circuits as well as the currents that they induced in one another.
Multipair cable
• Wire transmission media
In multipair cable anywhere from a half-dozen to several thousand twisted-pair circuits are bundled into a common sheath (see Figure 1). The twisted pair was developed in the late 19th century in order to reduce cross talk in multipair cables. In a process similar to that employed with open-wire pairs (described above), the forward and return conductors of each circuit in a multipair cable are braided together, equalizing the relative positions of all the circuits in the cable and thus equalizing currents induced by cross talk.
For many high-speed and high-density applications, such as computer networking, each wire pair is sheathed in metallic foil. Sheathing produces a balanced circuit, called a shielded pair, that benefits from greatly reduced radiation losses and immunity to cross talk interference.
Coaxial cable
• Wire transmission media
By enclosing a single conducting wire in a dielectric insulator and an outer conducting shell, an electrically shielded transmission circuit called coaxial cable is obtained. In a coaxial cable the electromagnetic field propagates within the dielectric insulator, while the associated current flow is restricted to adjacent surfaces of the inner and outer conductors. As a result, coaxial cable has very low radiation losses and low susceptibility to external interference.
In order to reduce weight and make the cable flexible, tinned copper or aluminum foil is commonly used for the conducting shell. Most coaxial cables employ a lightweight polyethylene or wood pulp insulator; although air would be a more effective dielectric, the solid material serves as a mechanical support for the inner conductor.
Applications of wire
Because of the high signal attenuation inherent in wire, transmission over distances greater than a few kilometres requires the use of regularly spaced repeaters to amplify, restore, and retransmit the signal. Transmission lines also require impedance matching at the transmitter or receiver in order to reduce echo-creating reflections. Impedance matching is accomplished in long-distance telephone cables by attaching a wire coil to each end of the line whose electrical impedance, measured in ohms, is equal to the characteristic impedance of the transmission line. A familiar example of impedance matching is the transformer used on older television sets to match a 75-ohm coaxial cable to antenna terminals made for a 300-ohm twin-lead connection.
Coaxial cable is classified as either flexible or rigid. Standard flexible coaxial cable is manufactured with characteristic impedance ranging from 50 to 92 ohms. The high attenuation of flexible cable restricts its utility to short distances—e.g., spans of less than one kilometre, or approximately a half-mile—unless signal repeaters are used. For high-capacity long-distance transmission, a more efficient wire medium is rigid coaxial cable, which was favoured for telephone transmission until it was supplanted by optical fibres in the 1980s. A state-of-the-art rigid coaxial telephone cable is the transatlantic SG series cable; the third cable in the series, called TAT-6, was laid in 1976 by the American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T) between the east coast of the United States and the west coast of France. Capable of carrying 4,200 two-way voice circuits, the SG system has solid-state repeaters embedded in the cable housing at intervals of 9.5 kilometres (5.75 miles) and has equalizers that can be remotely adjusted to compensate for time-varying transmission characteristics.
Long-distance telephone cable is being phased out in favour of higher-performance optical fibre cable. Nevertheless, the last generation of long-distance telephone cable is still used to carry voice communication as well as broadband audio and video signals for cable television providers. For short-distance applications, where medium bandwidth and low-cost point-to-point communication is required, twisted pair and coaxial cable remain the standard. Voice-grade twisted pair is used for local subscriber loops in the public switched telephone network, and flexible coaxial cable is commonly used for cable television connections from curbside to home. Flexible coaxial cable also has been used for local area network interconnections, but it has largely been replaced with lighter and lower-cost data-grade twisted pair and optical fibre.
Automotive Insurance, a contract by which the insurer assumes the risk of any loss the owner or operator of a motor vehicle may incur through damage to property or persons as the result of an accident. There are many specific forms of motor-vehicle insurance, varying not only in the kinds of risk that they cover but also in the legal principles underlying them.
Liability insurance pays for damage to someone else's property or for injury to other persons resulting from an accident for which the insured is judged legally liable; collision insurance pays for damage to the insured car if it collides with another vehicle or object; comprehensive insurance pays for damage to the insured car resulting from fire or theft and also from many other causes; medical-payment insurance covers medical treatment for the policyholder and his passengers.
In many countries, other approaches to automobile accident insurance have been tried. These include compulsory liability insurance on a no-fault basis and loss insurance (accident and property insurance) carried by the driver or owner on behalf of any potential victim, who would recover without regard to fault.
Most existing no-fault plans are limited in the sense that they usually permit the insured party to sue the party at fault for damages in excess of those covered by the plan and permit insuring companies to recover costs from each other according to decisions on liability. Total no-fault insurance, on the other hand, would not permit the insured to enter tort liability actions or the insurer to recover costs from another insurer.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Jordanka Donkova (centre) of Bulgaria leading Cornelia Oschkenat (left) of East Germany to win the …
also called track-and-field sports or track and field a variety of competitions in running, walking, jumping, and throwing events. Although these contests are called track and field (or simply track) in the United States, they are generally designated as athletics elsewhere. This article covers the history, the organization, and the administration of the sports, the conduct of competitions, the rules and techniques of the individual events, and some of the sports' most prominent athletes.
Track-and-field athletics are the oldest forms of organized sport, having developed out of the most basic human activities—running, walking, jumping, and throwing. Athletics have become the most truly international of sports, with nearly every country in the world engaging in some form of competition. Most nations send teams of men and women to the quadrennial Olympic Games and to the official World Championships of track and field. There also are several continental and intercontinental championship meets held, including the European, Commonwealth, African, Pan-American, and Asian.
Within the broad title of athletics come as many as two dozen distinct events. These events, generally held outdoors, make up a meet. The outdoor running events are held on a 400-metre or 440-yard oval track, and field events (jumping and throwing) are held either inside the track's perimeter or in adjacent areas.
In many parts of the world, notably the United States, Canada, and Europe, the sport moves indoors during the winter; because of limited space, some events are modified and several are eliminated altogether.
Also within the general scope of track-and-field athletics come separate but related competitions that are not contested on the track. Cross-country running competition is carried out on various types of countryside and parkland. Marathons and races of other long distances are run on roads, and the long-distance race walks are contested on measured road courses. The rules followed by all organized competitions are established and enforced by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and its member body from each nation. The IAAF also ratifies all world records.
History
Origin and early development
There is little in the way of definitive records of athletics' early days as organized sport. Egyptian and Asian civilizations are known to have encouraged athletics many centuries before the Christian era. Perhaps as early as 1829 BC, Ireland was the scene of the Lugnasad festival's Tailteann Games, involving various forms of track-and-field activity. The Olympic Games of Greece, traditionally dated from 776 BC, continued through 11 centuries before ending about AD 393. These ancient Olympics were strictly male affairs, as to both participants and spectators. Greek women were reputed to have formed their own Heraea Games, which, like the Olympics, were held every four years.
Athletics as practiced today was born and grew to maturity in England. The first mention of the sport in England was recorded in 1154, when practice fields were first established in London. The sport was banned by King Edward III in the 1300s but revived a century later by Henry VIII, reputed to be an accomplished hammer thrower.
Modern development
The development of the modern sport, however, has come only since the early 19th century. Organized amateur footraces were held in England as early as 1825, but it was from 1860 that athletics enjoyed its biggest surge to that date. In 1861 the West London Rowing Club organized the first meet open to all amateurs, and in 1866 the Amateur Athletic Club (AAC) was founded and conducted the first English championships. The emphasis in all these meets was on competition for “gentlemen amateurs” who received no financial compensation. In 1880 the AAC yielded governing power to the Amateur Athletic Association (AAA).
The first meet in North America was held near Toronto in 1839, but it was the New York Athletic Club, formed in the 1860s, that placed the sport on a solid footing in the United States. The club held the world's first indoor meet and helped promote the formation in 1879 of the National Association of Amateur Athletes of America (NAAAA) to conduct national championships. Nine years later the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) took over as national governing body, amid reports that the NAAAA was lax in enforcing amateurism.
Athletics was well established in many countries by the late 1800s, but not until the revival of the Olympic Games in 1896 did the sport become truly international. Although begun modestly, the Olympics provided the inspiration and standardizing influence that was to spread interest in athletics worldwide. In 1912 the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) was founded, and by the time that organization celebrated its 75th anniversary in 1987 it had more than 170 national members. Its rules applied only to men's competition until 1936, when the IAAF also became the governing body of women's athletics.
Major international competitions before World War II included the Olympics, the British Empire Games, and the European Championships, but after the war athletics experienced its greatest period of growth, taking root especially in the developing countries. By the 1950s world-class athletes from African, Asian, and Latin American nations were enjoying great success at international meets.
Organization and tournaments
Top-level competition in athletics is still restricted to the amateur athlete, although the definition of “amateur” continues to evolve. The IAAF over time has reduced its definition of an amateur athlete to the simplest possible terms: “An amateur is one who abides by the eligibility rules of the IAAF” is the complete rule, allowing for change whenever the federation alters any of its other rules.
Until the 1980s the IAAF attempted to keep its athletes from benefiting financially from the sport. This was always a struggle, however, as star athletes and eager meet promoters managed to circumvent the rules. So did entire nations: eastern European countries provided government aid to athletes, other countries encouraged military personnel to concentrate on track-and-field training, and U.S. athletes received college scholarships in return for their skills.
Financial aid was made acceptable in the 1980s through the use of trust funds. Athletes were permitted to accept payment for appearing in competition, for performing well, for appearing in television commercials, or for other sport-related activities. The money was placed in trust; training expenses could be charged to the fund, with the remaining funds, if any, going to the athlete on retirement from competition. Some athletes were reported to have made several hundred thousand dollars a year under the new system.
The primary functions of the IAAF are to maintain a set of rules that are uniform throughout the world, to approve world records for outdoor and indoor competition, and to promote international athletics. While continuing to administer athletics competition in the Olympic Games, the IAAF began its own quadrennial World Championships in 1983, established World Cup competitions, and established walking, cross-country, marathon and other road races, indoor track and field, and junior competitions.
Each IAAF member nation has its own set of rules and maintains its own set of records in line with international guidelines. The amateur athletic federations of individual countries conduct their own national championships.
In the United States, for example, The Athletic Congress (TAC) alone has the power to select international teams (except for the Olympic team, which is under the jurisdiction of the United States Olympic Committee), to establish rules, and to accept or reject records. It also conducts the national championships and other competitions. Meets in which participation is restricted to college or university athletes usually are governed by the rules of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), or one of two junior (two-year) college groups. Most secondary schools in the United States come under the aegis of the National Federation of State High School Athletic Associations.
The details of the conduct of athletics competitions vary with the location and the level and type of meet. To a great degree the basic sport has been standardized by the rules of the IAAF. Outdoor track events take place on the 400-metre (about 440-yard) oval running track. Track compositions differ greatly. Once almost all tracks were of natural materials (dirt, clay, cinders, and crushed brick being the most common), but all major competition tracks now are made of synthetic materials. The synthetic track provides more consistent and faster footing in all weather conditions. Field event performers also benefit from improved footing; jumpers and javelin throwers perform on the same materials used for synthetic tracks, while the throwers of the shot, discus, and hammer work in circles made of concrete.
Indoor track meets adapt themselves to widely varying and often limiting conditions. Tracks range in size generally from 150 to 200 metres or 160 to 220 yards and have synthetic surfaces over wood. Some tracks have banked curves, others are unbanked. Cross-country running utilizes any terrain that is available—parks, golf courses, farmland. The prescribed IAAF distance in international races for men is approximately 12,000 metres (7.5 miles) and for women 4,000 metres (2.5 miles). Road events include walking, marathon, and other road runs of widely varying distances.
Meets
Equipment
Every event has items of equipment that are essential to the conduct of the event. All athletes, for example, require shoes that give traction and protection with minimum weight. Other items of equipment include the starting blocks used by sprinters and hurdlers, hurdles, vaulting poles, and the implements employed in the various throwing events.
Timing and measurements
Exacting timing and measurement of performances are a vital part of athletics, not only to determine winners at the meet in question but also to provide marks that can be compared for record purposes. Fully automatic timing, using photography, is required for world records and all major competitions. Timing, once done in fifths of a second and then in tenths, now is done in hundredths of a second. By rule, an aiding wind of more than 2 metres per second (4.473 miles per hour) nullifies a record time in distances up to 200 metres. Metric measurements are required for both track and field events, even in the United States. The only English-measure distance that remains popular is the one-mile run. With the 1987 inauguration of the World Indoor Championships, the IAAF began accepting indoor records.
Presentation
Athletics meets differ greatly in presentation. The typical school, university, or club meet is of one-day duration. Conference meets generally last two days, while national championships require three to four days to accommodate large numbers of athletes. The Olympic Games and World Championships are scheduled for eight days of athletics competition.
All track events begin with the firing of a gun. In races of one lap or less the runners remain in their marked lanes for the entire distance. In longer events the runners may ignore the lane markers and run as close to the inside edge of the track as is prudent. The runner whose torso reaches the winning line first is the winner.
Field events have two types of qualifying competitions. In the smaller meets all participants are allowed three attempts, with the top six to nine athletes getting three more. In the larger meets there is a qualifying round from which about 12 athletes advance to the finals, at which stage the remaining competition proceeds in the same manner as in the smaller meets. The exceptions in field event competition are the vertical jumps—the high jump and pole vault. Jumpers are given three tries at each height; three consecutive misses cause elimination.
Although athletics is basically an individual sport, team scoring is sometimes important. Dual meets are always scored, but there are no official scores for multi-team international meets, such as the Olympic Games. Conference and national meets among universities also are scored officially. The points allotted to individual events and places vary from meet to meet. A national competition may award 10 points for first place, 8 for second, and so on. Similarly, an international dual meet awards 5 points for first place, 3 for second, 2 for third, and 1 for fourth. The team with the highest point total wins the meet. Cross-country meets always are scored, with the winner getting 1 point, second place 2 points, etc., the low score winning.
Runners have a chance to compete year-round. The indoor season lasts from January through March; the outdoor competition lasts until June for schools and colleges, with the higher-level individual competitors participating in track through September. In the United States autumn is given over to cross-country running. International cross-country is held in winter.
Conflicts and controversies
Athletics, occupying centre stage at all international games, generates its share of conflicts. Until the IAAF's trust-fund system there was continual concern about athletes earning money by violating rules. From about 1970 the question of drug usage has been a major issue. Athletes are forbidden to use a number of drugs that are said to improve performance. Testing for such use is required at the major meets, and, while the great majority of athletes tested are found to be free of banned drugs, each year a small number of athletes are found guilty of violating the drug rule and are suspended from competition, usually for 18 months. Most frequently the violators have used anabolic steroids in an attempt to increase muscle size and strength.
Events
As many as 25 events may make up a men's meet; women compete in a few less. The men's track events at championship meets generally include the 100-, 200-, 400-, 800-, 1,500-, 5,000-, and 10,000-metre runs; the 3,000-metre steeplechase; the 110- and 400-metre hurdles; and the 400- and 1,500-metre relays. The field events usually include the high jump, pole vault, long jump, triple jump, shot put, discus throw, hammer throw, and javelin throw. The decathlon, combining 10 track-and-field events, is also featured. Women run much the same schedule, with 100-metre instead of 110-metre hurdles, but do not compete in the steeplechase, pole vault, or hammer throw. They compete in the heptathlon (seven events) rather than the decathlon, and both men and women run the marathon. Women walk up to 10,000 metres and men up to 50,000 metres.
Running
The sprints
The relatively short sprint distances, ranging up to 400 metres, require a sustained top speed. Originally all sprinters started from a standing position, but in the 1880s the crouch start was invented, and it became a rule that sprinters must start with both feet and both hands on the track. The introduction of the adjustable starting block aided the quick start, critical in the sprints.
The current record holder at 100 metres generally is considered to be “the fastest human.” Holding that title have been such champions as Eddie Tolan, Jesse Owens, Bobby Morrow, Bob Hayes, and Carl Lewis (all of the United States), Valeriy Borzov (U.S.S.R.), Linford Christie (U.K.), and Donovan Bailey (Canada). Maurice Greene of the United States set a record time of 9.79 seconds at a 1999 meet in Athens, Greece. Outstanding women sprint champions have included Fanny Blankers-Koen (The Netherlands), who won four gold medals in the 1948 Olympics, Wilma Rudolph (U.S.), who won three in 1960, Marita Koch (East Germany), who was a winner at all three sprint distances, and Florence Griffith Joyner (U.S.), who set world records at 100 and 200 metres in 1988.
The 400 metres is run in lanes all the way; distance is equalized by a staggered start, the sprinters being spaced progressively farther up the track based on the distance their lane is from the inside edge. Outstanding in this event were Lee Evans (U.S.), whose 43.86-second mark remained the world record 20 years after he set it in 1968, Alberto Juantorena (Cuba), whose 44.26-second time in the 1976 Olympics was the fastest without the aid of high altitude, and Michael Johnson (U.S.), whose world record time of 43.18 seconds was set at the 1999 World Championships in Sevilla, Spain. Jarmila Kratochvilova (Czechoslovakia) won a rare double victory in the women's 400- and 800-metre events at the 1983 World Championships.
Middle-distance running
The longer the race, the more endurance is needed. The middle-distance events, in this discussion, range from 800 to 2,000 metres. Some authorities regard the 3,000-metre race as middle-distance.
Middle-distance runners usually are able to perform well at either the shorter or the longer distances. Racing tactics, including pacing, are more important at these than at any other distances. Even though it is no longer a championship event, the mile is still a glamour event. The first athlete to run a mile in less than four minutes—Roger Bannister of England in 1954—captured world attention. A “sub-four” is still a notable time, even though it is now routinely accomplished by the world's top runners. Other great middle-distance runners include Paavo Nurmi (Finland), who won both the 1,500 (the metric “mile”) and 5,000 metres on the same day in the 1924 Olympics, Sebastian Coe (U.K.), who won two Olympic gold medals at 1,500 metres and two silver at 800 metres, Noureddine Morceli (Algeria), who won two world championships and an Olympic gold medal in the 1,500 metres, and Hicham El Guerrouj (Morocco), who set outdoor and indoor world records in the 1,500 metres and the mile. Two Soviet women created memorable middle-distance records. Tatyana Kazankina won five world records, while Lyudmila Bragina established eight. Mary Decker Slaney (U.S.) also won consistently at the middle distances.
Long-distance running
There is some difference of opinion over the dividing line between middle-distance and long-distance runs. The long-distance events considered here are those ranging from 3,000 metres upward; they include the marathon, steeplechase, cross-country, and road runs. The marathon is the longest event for which the IAAF keeps records. Speed becomes an even less important factor in the longer runs, pace and endurance correspondingly more so. The longer the run, the less likely the burst of speed known as the “finishing kick” at the end of the race.
Runners may also overlap the long- and middle-distance events. Nurmi, Gunder Hägg (Sweden), and Said Aouita (Morocco) all set world records at both 1,500 and 5,000 metres. Nurmi won at all distances longer than 1,000 metres except the marathon. Distance runners provide the most prolific record setters, including Nurmi, Ron Clarke (Australia), Kip Keino (Kenya), Haile Gebrselassie (Ethiopia), and Emil Zátopek (Czechoslovakia), the last of whom performed the remarkable feat of winning the marathon and the 5,000- and 10,000-metre races at the 1952 Olympic Games. The longer races for women have been slow to develop, but a number of runners have been able to compete at various distances, including Ingrid Kristiansen (Norway).
The steeplechase combines long-distance running with hurdling, each runner being required to clear seven water jumps and 28 hurdles in a 3,000-metre course. Although hurdling is an important aspect of the event, by far the greatest need is the ability to run the distance. Steeplechase competitors are often specialists, but there are examples of fine distance runners who have successfully overcome more experienced hurdlers. Henry Rono (Kenya), one of the most successful at the steeplechase, also held world records at 3,000, 5,000, and 10,000 metres.
The marathon was a key event at the first modern Olympic Games in 1896, and it has become a major attraction of the Olympics and other international contests. The race originally commemorated the feat of a Greek soldier who in 490 BC supposedly ran from Marathon to Athens to bring news of the Greek victory over the Persians. At 26.22 miles (42,186 metres) the marathon is the longest race of the track meet. Hannes Kolehmainen (Finland) and Zátopek are two of the more memorable marathoners.
Hurdling
The hurdling events combine sprinting with negotiating a series of obstacles called hurdles. Men run the 110-metre high hurdles over 10 barriers 106.7 cm (42 inches) high and 9.14 metres (10 yards) apart. The 400-metre intermediate hurdles also covers 10 hurdles, but 91.4 cm (36 inches) in height and 35 metres (38.29 yards) apart. Women now run both the 100-metre high and 400-metre hurdles. A hurdler may knock down any number of hurdles but is disqualified if he runs out of his lane or uses his hands to knock over hurdles. The object is to make the hurdling action smooth and rhythmic so as not to disrupt forward progress.
High hurdlers need excellent speed, most champions also being good sprinters. An outstanding example is Harrison Dillard (U.S.), who won the 100-metre flat race in the 1948 Olympics and the high hurdles in the 1952 Games. Intermediate hurdlers also combine speed with hurdling ability. Glenn Davis (U.S.), who won both the 1956 and 1960 Olympics, was a world-record breaker on the flat as well as over the hurdles. Edwin Moses (U.S.) virtually revolutionized the event with his unusual 13-stride (between hurdles) technique. He also won two Olympics and achieved a winning streak lasting nearly 10 years.
Relays
The relays involve four runners per team, each member carrying a baton for 25 percent of the total distance before passing it to the next team runner. Two events, the 4 × 100- and 4 × 400-metre relays, are standard. They are included both in low-level dual meets and in the Olympic Games and the IAAF World Championships. Speed is essential in both events, and the ability to pass the baton well is especially crucial in the shorter event, where each runner covers 100 metres. Exchanging the baton while running about 25 miles per hour brings to the event a quality of suspense. Many races have been won or lost by the quality of baton passing. Other relay events—the 4 × 200-, 4 × 800-, and 4 × 1,500-metres—are run much less frequently.
Walking
This event, also called race walking, is relatively minor. Aside from the Olympic and other multinational competitions, it is seldom a part of track meets. Olympic competition is over 20,000 and 50,000 metres, while other distances are used in individual competitions.
Jumping
Men and women compete in four jumping events: the high jump, long jump, triple jump, and pole vault.
The high jump
There is one basic rule for high jumping: the jumper must leave the ground from one foot, not two. The object is to clear a thin bar perched atop two standards, and the jumper remains in the competition as long as he does not have three consecutive misses. Jumpers may enter the competition at any height above the minimum height and are allowed to pass any height as the bar is raised to new levels. Inflated or foam-rubber landing pits have replaced dirt and sawdust pits. The modern pits are of value because jumpers often land on the back of the shoulders and neck.
Jumping styles evolved in the 20th century with techniques called the scissors, eastern cut-off, western roll, and straddle (or belly roll) preceding the Fosbury flop. Named for its inventor, Dick Fosbury (U.S.), the 1968 Olympic champion, the flop involves an approach from almost straight ahead, then twisting on takeoff and going over headfirst with the back to the bar. Charles Dumas (U.S.), a notable example of the straddle jumpers, in 1956 became the first man to clear 7 feet (2.13 metres). Valeriy Brumel (U.S.S.R.) held the high-jump record for 10 years using the straddle jump. A woman jumper, Iolanda Balas (Romania), achieved remarkable feats in the event, establishing 13 world records and a winning streak of 140 meets.
The pole vault
Pole-vaulting is conducted along the lines of the high jump; i.e., vaulters attempt to vault over a crossbar placed on uprights, they have three tries at each height, and they land in an inflated or composition pit.
The vaulter runs down a runway for about 45 metres (150 feet) carrying a pole. After planting the end of the pole in a box that is sunk below ground level, the vaulter leaves the ground and pulls himself upward until he is almost doing a handstand on the pole. He twists as he nears the crossbar and arches over it feetfirst and facedown.
The first poles, of solid ash, cedar, or hickory, were heavy and cumbersome. Once the bamboo pole was introduced in 1904, it was quickly adopted. Records set with bamboo lasted until 1957, when records were set with an aluminum pole and a steel pole; these were followed by the fibreglass pole in the 1960s.
The dominant vaulter of the bamboo era was Cornelius Warmerdam (U.S.), who scored six world records; he was the first vaulter to go over 15 feet (4.6 metres), and he set a record of 15 feet 7.75 inches that lasted for 15 years. The constant improvement of fibreglass poles helped vaulters such as Sergey Bubka (Ukraine) push the record over 20 feet in the 1990s. In the 1990s the IAAF added women's pole vault to the competition roster, and Stacy Dragila (U.S.) became the event's first women's world and Olympic champion.
The long jump
Long jumping, formerly called broad jumping, is the least complicated of the field events. Speed is the most essential ingredient for a successful jump. Jumpers make their approach down the runway at nearly top speed, plant a foot on the takeoff board, and leap into the air. A legal jump requires that no part of the forward foot extend beyond the board. The most popular long-jumping style is called the “hitch-kick,” in which the runner seemingly walks in air.
Bob Beamon (U.S.) breaking the world record in the long jump at 8.90 metres (29.2 feet) during the …
Three distinct landmarks stand out in the history of long jumping. The first of these was the achievement of Jesse Owens (U.S.), who on May 25, 1935, jumped 8.13 metres (26 feet 8.25 inches), a record that endured for 25 years. The second was Bob Beamon's (U.S.) leap of 8.90 metres (29 feet 2.5 inches), a jump that exceeded the old world record by 55 cm (21.5 inches). The third feat came in 1991, when Mike Powell (U.S.) broke Beamon's 23-year record with a jump of 8.95 metres (29 feet 4.5 inches).
Notable among the women jumpers are Heike Drechsler (Germany) and Jackie Joyner-Kersee (U.S.), both of whom leaped over 7 metres (23 feet).
The triple jump
Once known as the hop, step, and jump, the triple jump includes three distinct segments of action. The jumper comes down the runway and bounds off a takeoff board, similar in style to but a little slower than long jumpers. The first segment involves the jumper executing a hop by landing on the same foot from which he took off. Then he takes a step, landing on the other foot, and concludes with a jump into the sand pit.
Among the outstanding competitors, Adhemar da Silva (Brazil) won two Olympics and set five world records; Jozef Schmidt (Poland), also a two-time Olympic champion, set a record in 1960 of 17.03 metres (55 feet 10.5 inches) and was the first to go over the 17-metre barrier; and Viktor Saneyev (U.S.S.R.) had three world records and three Olympic wins and one second place. Women began competing in the triple jump in the mid-1980s.
Throwing
The four standard throwing events—shot, discus, hammer, and javelin—all involve the use of implements of various weights and shapes that are hurled for distance.
The shot put
The putting action is best described as shoving the shot, because the rules require that the arm may not extend behind the shoulders during the putting action. The spherical shot is made of metal. The men's shot weighs 7.26 kg (16 pounds) and is 110–130 mm (4.3–5.1 inches) in diameter. Women put a 4-kg (8.82-pound) shot that is 95–110 mm (3.7–4.3 inches) in diameter.
The putter must launch the shot from within a ring 2.135 metres (7 feet) in diameter and so must gather momentum for the put by a rapid twisting movement. Shot-putters are among the largest athletes in track and field, the most massive ranging from 250 to 300 pounds (113 to 136 kg). Beginning in the 1950s, weight training became a major part of a shot-putter's training program. In that same period the O'Brien style of putting was popularized, with outstanding results. Developed by Parry O'Brien (U.S.), the style involved a 180-degree turn (rather than the usual 90-degree turn) across the ring, getting more speed and momentum into the action. O'Brien was the best exponent of the style, winning three Olympic medals (two gold) and raising the record from 17.95 metres (58 feet 10.75 inches) to 19.30 metres (63 feet 4 inches).
Some athletes have turned to a style in which the putter spins one and a half turns before releasing the shot, a technique developed by Brian Oldfield (U.S.).
The discus throw
Discus throwing is considered by many the classic event of athletics, the Greek poet Homer having made references to discus throwing in the 8th century BC. Modern male athletes throw a 2-kg (4.4-pound) platelike implement from a 2.5-metre (8.2-foot) circle. The discus is launched after the thrower, starting at the back of the circle, has completed one and a half turns. The women's discus weighs 1 kg (2.2 pounds).
Legendary among discus throwers are the feats of Al Oerter (U.S.), the first to throw over 200 feet (61 metres). He won an Olympic gold medal at the 1956 Games as a 20-year-old and at each of the following three Games as well. He also set four world records. A standout among women throwers was Faina Melnik (U.S.S.R.), who set 11 world records.
The hammer throw
The implement used in the hammer throw is not a conventional hammer but a metal ball at least 110 mm (4.3 inches) in diameter attached to a wire, the whole implement being a minimum of 1,175 mm (46.3 inches) in length and weighing a minimum of 7.2 kg (16 pounds). The handle at the end of the wire opposite from the ball is gripped by the thrower and released after three or four body turns have developed maximum centrifugal force. The throwing circle is slightly smaller than that of the discus. Women's hammer throw was introduced into international competition in the 1990s. The hammer used by women is slightly shorter and weighs a minimum of 4 kg (8.8 pounds).
American athletes of Irish birth or descent totally dominated the event from the 1890s to the 1930s and included John Flanagan, who unofficially set 17 world records and won three Olympic gold medals (1900, 1904, and 1908). After the passing of the Irish dynasty, the power shifted to the eastern Europeans. Among them was Yury Sedykh (U.S.S.R.), who won at the 1976 and 1980 Olympics and raised the record from 80.32 metres (24.5 feet) to 86.74 metres (26.4 feet).
The javelin throw
Javelin throwing involves a spearlike implement that is hurled with an over-the-shoulder motion at the end of an approach run. It is a direct descendant of spear-throwing contests, introduced in the Olympics of 708 BC. The men's javelin weighs about 800 grams (1.8 pounds) and must be at least 260 cm (8.5 feet) long. The women throw a javelin that must weigh at least 600 grams (1.3 pounds) and be at least 220 cm (7.2 feet) long. It is the only throwing event not using a circle. The javelin is not required to stick but must land point-first for a valid throw.
Throwers from Finland have historically been a force in the event. Matti Järvinen, a Finn, established 10 world records and improved the record by 6.22 metres, finally reaching 77.23 metres (253 feet 4.5 inches) in 1936. As records continued to be broken, there was less and less space within the stadium to throw the javelin safely. Terje Pedersen (Norway) broke the 300-foot (91.44-metre) barrier in 1964, and by 1984 Uwe Hohn (East Germany) had thrown a prodigious 104.80 metres (343.8 feet), a throw so great that it influenced a change in the design of the javelin to keep it within the safe confines of the field. Beginning in 1985, throwers used a javelin that, at the same weight, was designed to reduce the length of the throw by 9 to 12 metres (30 to 40 feet). The design of the women's javelin was changed after successive world records pushed close to 80 metres (262.5 feet) in the late 1980s.
Decathlon and heptathlon
Both men and women participate in multi-event competitions, the men in the 10-event decathlon and the women in the 7-event heptathlon, which superseded the earlier pentathlon. The competitions, which require a two-day schedule, are held basically at international meets and national championships. In the United States they also are scheduled in many college conference championships.
Each athlete is given points for performance in each event, with more points awarded for better marks. The athlete with the most total points wins.
Men compete in five events each day, doing consecutively the 100 metres, long jump, shot put, high jump, and 400 metres on the first day and the 110-metre hurdles, discus throw, pole vault, javelin throw, and 1,500-metre run in that order on the second day. Women do, in order, the 100-metre hurdles, high jump, shot put, and 200 metres on the first day, followed by the long jump, javelin throw, and 800 metres on the second day.
Jim Thorpe, the great all-around American athlete, won the first decathlon, taking the 1912 Olympic Games contest, and for many years it was mostly an American event. Bob Mathias (U.S.) won his first decathlon at age 17 in 1948 and repeated it four years later. Another two-time winner was Daley Thompson of England, victorious in 1980 and 1984. Notable in the heptathlon was Jackie Joyner-Kersee, a record setter and winner at the 1987 World Championships and 1988 Olympics.
spo
form of motor racing involving cars built to combine aspects of racing and touring cars. Although there are many conflicting definitions of sports cars, it is usually conceded that in normal production form they do not resemble Grand Prix (Formula One) racing machines. Whereas the latter is a single-seat design carrying spartan cockpit furnishings and utterly functional equipment throughout, the sports car is usually a two-seater, sometimes a four-seater, characterized by its nimble abilities (if not speed and power) together with general suitability for high-speed touring on ordinary roads. Unlike a Grand Prix car, it is usually series-produced, seldom handmade. Some manufacturers of Grand Prix machines, such as Ferrari and Lotus, also make sports cars. Other makes include MG, Jaguar, Aston Martin, Austin-Healey, Triumph, Porsche, Lancia, Morgan, and Chevrolet Corvette. Although not usually designed exclusively for racing, sports cars are, nevertheless, able racing machines and are often entered in competitions with others of their class. Most of the world's sports-car racing is conducted for amateur drivers by local and regional organizations. Some of the world's most famous professional races are sports-car events, however, and may even be designated as Grand Prix. (When the term Grand Prix is used in this context, it does not refer to the type of car used but rather to the race's being a major automotive event of the nation in which it is held.) The development of sports cars for racing, especially in such commercially important events as the 24-hour endurance race at Le Mans, where the reputations of participating manufacturers are very much at stake, brought about some prototype sports cars that are, in reality, little different in their power and speed potentials from Formula One machines. A world sports-car championship was awarded from 1953 to 1961. It was replaced in 1962 by a manufacturer's championship, for which grand touring and prototype cars also compete, awarded annually to the make of car that achieves the best record in a specified series of races
sports
recreational or competitive activities that involve a degree of physical strength or skill. At one time, sports were commonly considered to include only the outdoor recreational pastimes, such as fishing, shooting, and hunting, as opposed to games, which were regarded as organized athletic contests played by teams or individuals according to prescribed rules. The distinction between sports and games has grown less clear, however, and the two terms are now often used interchangeably.
Many animals engage in play, but homo sapiens is the only animal to have invented sports. Since sports are an invention, a part of culture rather than an aspect of nature, all definitions of sports are somewhat arbitrary. Whether sports are a human universal found in every known culture or a phenomenon unique to modern society depends upon one's definition of sports. Men and women have always run, jumped, climbed, lifted, thrown, and wrestled, but they have not always performed these physical activities competitively. Although all literate societies seem to have contests of one sort or another in which men, and sometimes women, compete in displays and tests of physical skill and prowess, sports may be strictly defined as physical contests performed for their own sake and not for some ulterior end. According to this strict definition, neither Neolithic hunters nor contestants in religious ceremonies such as the ancient Olympic Games were engaged in sports. Insistence on the stipulation that sports must be performed for their own sake means the paradoxical elimination of many activities which are usually thought of as sports, such as exercises done for the sake of cardiovascular fitness, races run to satisfy a physical education requirement, ball games played to earn a paycheck. Strict definition also means abandonment of the traditional usage in which “sport,” derived from Middle English disporter, refers to any lighthearted recreational activity. In the minds of some 18th-century aristocrats, a game of backgammon and the seduction of a milkmaid were both considered good sport, but this usage of the term has become archaic.
Strict conceptualization allows the construction of an evolutionary history of sports in which extrinsic political, economic, military, and religious motivations decrease in importance as intrinsic motivations—participation for its own sake—increase. The disadvantage, however, is that the determination that a given activity is truly a sport depends on the answer to a psychological question: What is the motivation of the participants? The question of motivation cannot be answered unambiguously. It is probable that the contestants of the ancient Olympic Games were motivated by the intrinsic pleasure of the contest as well as by the religious imperatives of Greek cult. It is also probable that modern professional athletes are motivated by more than simply economic motives. Thus most scholars assume quietly that popular usage cannot be completely wrong to refer, for instance, to U.S. professional National Football League games as sports.
History
No one can say when sports began. Since it is difficult to imagine a time when children did not spontaneously run races or wrestle, it is clear that children have always included sports in their play, but one can only speculate about the emergence of sports as autotelic (played for their own sake) physical contests for adults. Hunters are depicted in prehistoric art, but it cannot be known whether the hunters pursued their prey in a mood of grim necessity or with the joyful abandon of sportsmen. It is certain, however, from the rich literary and iconographic evidence of all ancient civilizations that the hunt soon became an end in itself—at least for royalty and nobility. Archaeological evidence also indicates that ball games were common among the ancient Chinese. If such games were contests rather than ritual performances like the Japanese football game kemari, then they were instances of sports in the most rigorously defined sense. That it cannot simply be assumed they were contests is clear from the evidence presented by Greek and Roman antiquity, indicating that ball games seem to have been for the most part playful pastimes like those recommended for health by the 2nd-century AD Greek physician Galen.
Sports in the ancient world
Egypt
Sports were certainly common in ancient Egypt, where pharaohs demonstrated their fitness to rule by prowess in the hunt and by exhibitions of strength and skill in archery. In such exhibitions, pharaohs such as Amenhotep II (ruled 1450–25 BC) never competed against another person, and there is reason to suspect that their extraordinary achievements were scribal fictions. However, Egyptians with less claim to divinity jumped, wrestled, and engaged in ball games and stick fights of the sort that can still be observed in Egypt.
Crete and Greece
Since Minoan script still baffles scholars, it is uncertain whether Cretan boys and girls who tested their acrobatic skills against bulls were engaged in sports, in religious ritual, or in both.
That the feats of the Cretans may have been both sport and ritual is suggested by evidence from Greece, where sports had a significance unequaled anywhere before the rise of modern sports. Secular and religious motives mingle in history's first extensive “sports report,” found in book 23 of Homer's Iliad in the form of funeral games for the dead Patroclus. These games were a part of cult and were not, therefore, autotelic, but the contests in the Odyssey are essentially secular. Odysseus was challenged by the Phaeacians to demonstrate his prowess as an athlete. In general, Greek culture included both cultic sports, such as the Olympic Games honouring Zeus, and secular contests.
The most famous association of sports and religion was certainly the Olympic Games, which Greek tradition dated from 776 BC but which probably began much earlier. In the course of time, the earth goddess Gaea, originally worshiped at Olympia, was supplanted in importance by the sky god Zeus, in whose honour priestly officials conducted quadrennial athletic contests. Sacred also were the games held at Delphi, in honour of Apollo, and at Corinth and Nemea. These four events were known as the periodos, and great athletes, such as Theagenes of Thasos, prided themselves on victories at all four sites. The extraordinary prestige accorded athletic triumphs brought with it not only literary accolades (as in the odes of Pindar) and visual commemoration (in the form of statues of the victors) but also material benefits, contrary to the amateur myth propagated by 19th-century philhellenists. Since the Greeks were devoted to secular sports as well as to sacred games, no polis, or city-state, was considered a proper community if it lacked a gymnasium where, as the word gymnos indicates, naked male athletes trained and competed. Except at militaristic Sparta, Greek girls rarely participated in sports of any kind. Women were excluded from the Olympic Games even as spectators (except for the priestess of Demeter). Pausanias, the 2nd-century-AD traveler, wrote of races for girls at Olympia, but these events in honour of Hera were of minor importance.
Rome
Although chariot races were among the most popular sports spectacles of the Roman and Byzantine eras, as they were in Greek times, the Romans of the republic and the early empire were quite selectively enthusiastic about Greek athletic contests. Their emphasis was on physical exercises for military preparedness, an important motive in all ancient civilizations; they preferred boxing, wrestling, and hurling the javelin to running footraces and throwing the discus. The historian Livy tells of Greek athletes appearing in Rome as early as 186 BC, but the contestants' nudity shocked Roman moralists. The emperor Augustus instituted the Actian Games in 27 BC to celebrate his victory over Antony and Cleopatra, and several emperors began similar games, but it was not until the later empire, especially during the reign of Hadrian (AD 117–138), that large numbers of the Roman elite developed an enthusiasm for Greek athletics.
Chariot races in Rome's Circus Maximus were watched by as many as 250,000 spectators, five times the number that crowded into the Colosseum to enjoy gladiatorial combats. Nevertheless, there is some evidence that the latter contests were more popular even than the former. Indeed, the munera, which pitted man against man, and the venationes, which set men against animals, became popular even in the Eastern Empire, which historians once thought immune from the lust for blood. The greater frequency of chariot races can be explained in part by the fact that they were relatively inexpensive compared to the enormous costs of gladiatorial combats. (The editor who staged the games usually rented the gladiators from a lanista and was required to reimburse him for losers executed in response to a “thumbs down” sign.) Brutal as these combats were, many of the gladiators were free men who volunteered to fight, an obvious sign of intrinsic motivation. Indeed, imperial edicts were needed to discourage the aristocracy's participation. In AD 63, during the reign of Nero, female gladiators were introduced into the arena.
The circus and the hippodrome, a stadium of Greek origin for chariot racing, continued to provide popular sports spectacles long after Christian protests (and heavy economic costs) ended the gladiatorial games, probably early in the 5th century. In many ways, the chariot races were quite modern. The charioteers were divided into bureaucratically organized factions (e.g., the “Blues” and the “Greens”), which excited the loyalties of fans from Britain to Mesopotamia. Charioteers boasted of the number of their victories as modern athletes brag about their “stats,” indicating, perhaps, some incipient awareness of what in modern times are called sports records. The gladiatorial games, however, like the Greek games before them, had a powerful religious dimension. The first Roman combats, in 264 BC, were derived from Etruscan funeral games in which mortal combat provided companions for the deceased. It was the idolatry of the games, even more than their brutality, that horrified Christian protestors. The lesser pagan religious association of the chariot races helped them survive late into the post-Constantine period.
Sports in the Middle Ages
The sports of medieval times were less well-organized. Fairs and seasonal festivals were occasions for men to lift stones or sacks of grain and for women to run smock races (for a smock, not in one). The favourite sport of the peasantry was folk football, a wild sort of no-holds-barred unbounded game that pitted married men against bachelors or one village against another. The violence of the game, which survived in Britain and in France until the late 19th century, was such that Renaissance humanists, such as Sir Thomas Elyot, condemned it as more likely to maim than to benefit the participants.
The nascent bourgeoisie of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance amused itself with archery matches, some of which were arranged months in advance and staged with considerable fanfare. When town met town in a challenge of skill, the companies of crossbowmen and longbowmen marched behind the symbols of St. George, St. Sebastian, and other patrons of the sport. It was not unusual for contests in running, jumping, cudgeling, and wrestling to be offered for the lower classes who attended the match as spectators. Grand feasts were part of the program, and drunkenness commonly added to the revelry. In Germanic areas, a Pritschenkoenig was supposed to simultaneously keep order and entertain the crowd with clever verses.
The burghers of medieval towns were welcome to watch the aristocracy at play, but they were not allowed to participate in tournaments or even, in most parts of Europe, to compete in imitative tournaments of their own. Tournaments were the jealously guarded prerogative of the medieval knight and, along with hunting and hawking, his favourite pastime. At the tilt, in which mounted knights with lances tried to unhorse one another, the knight was practicing the art of war, his raison d'être. He displayed his prowess before lords, ladies, and commoners and profited not only from valuable prizes but also from ransoms exacted from the losers. Between the 12th and the 16th centuries, the dangerously wild free-for-all of the early tournament evolved into dramatic presentations of courtly life in which elaborate pageantry and allegorical display quite overshadowed the frequently inept jousts. Some danger remained even amid the display. At one of the last great tournaments, in 1559, Henry II of France was mortally wounded by a lance blow.
Peasant women participated freely in the ball games and footraces of medieval times, and aristocratic ladies hunted and kept falcons, but middle-class women contented themselves with spectatorship. Even so, they were more active than their contemporaries in Heian Japan during the 8th to the 12th century. Encumbered by many-layered robes and sequestered in their homes, the Japanese ladies were unable to do more than peep from behind their screens at the courtiers' mounted archery contests.
Sports in the Renaissance and modern period
The changing nature of sports
By the time of the Renaissance, sports had become entirely secular, but in the minds of the Czech educator John Amos Comenius and other humanists, a concern for physical education on what were thought to be classic models overshadowed the competitive aspects of sports. Indeed, 15th- and 16th-century elites perferred dances to sports and delighted in geometric patterns of movement. The ballet developed in France during this period. Horses were trained to graceful movement rather than bred for speed. French and Italian fencers like the famed Girard Thibault, whose L'Accademie de l'espee appeared in 1628, thought of their activity more as an art form than as a combat. Northern Europeans emulated them. Humanistically inclined Englishmen and Germans admired the cultivated Florentine game of calcio (“kick”), a form of football that stressed the good looks and elegant attire of the players.
The development of sports into the forms of the present day began in late 17th-century England when the emphasis gradually shifted from measure, in the sense of balance or proportion, to measurement. During the Restoration and throughout the 18th century, traditional pastimes like stick fighting and bullbaiting, which the Puritans had condemned and driven underground, gave way to organized games, like cricket, which developed under the leadership of the Marylebone Cricket Club (founded 1787). Behind these changes lay a new conception of rationalized competition. Contests that seem odd to the modern mind, like those in which cripples were matched against children, were replaced by horse races in which fleeter steeds were handicapped, a notion of equality that led eventually to age and weight classes (but not height classes) in many modern sports. The traditional sport of boxing flourished throughout the 18th century, guided and regulated by boxer-entrepreneurs like James Figg and his pupil Jack Broughton, and, eventually, by the Marquess of Queensberry, whose 1867 rules replaced Broughton's 1743 attempt to civilize the sport.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, sports became increasingly specialized, and national organizations developed to standardize rules and regulations, to organize sporadic challenge matches into systematic league competition, to certify eligibility, and to register results. England's Football Association was formed in 1863 to propagate that sport (called soccer in the United States), which had developed out of medieval folk football (as, eventually, did rugby and American football). The Amateur Athletic Association followed in 1880. From England and then from the United States, modern sports spread throughout the globe. Sports that originally began elsewhere, such as tennis (which derives from Renaissance France), were modernized and exported as if they too were raw materials imported for British industry to transform and then ship out as finished goods. By the early 20th century, organizations like the International Olympic Committee (founded 1894), the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (1904), and the International Amateur Athletic Federation (1912) had begun to seem inevitable.
During the age of imperialism, when Europeans and Americans dominated much of Asia and most of Africa, the colonial powers suppressed traditional sports and introduced their own modern ones. Japan, one of the few non-Western nations where a traditional sport (sumo) rivals a modern one (baseball) in popularity, is also one of the few non-Western nations to contribute a sport (judo) to the modern Olympic Games.
Behind the dramatic transition to modern sports lay the scientific developments that sustained the Industrial Revolution. Technicians sought to perfect equipment. Athletes trained systematically to achieve their physical maximum. New games, like basketball, volleyball, and team handball, were consciously invented to specification as if they were new products for the market. As early as the late 17th century, quantification became an important aspect of sports, and the cultural basis was created for the concept of sports record. The word “record,” in the sense of an unsurpassed quantified achievement, appeared, first in English and then in other languages, only in the late 19th century.
Development of modern sports
The sociological terms used to describe the development of modern sports, such as secularization, rationalization, specialization, bureaucratization, and quantification, all suggest that the formal and structural characteristics specific to 20th-century sports are the characteristics of modern society generally. Although Marxist scholars contend that this development is the result of industrial capitalism, non-Marxists, adapting the sociological theories of the German Max Weber, the Frenchman Émile Durkheim, and the American Talcott Parsons and others, have observed that modern sports antedate industrial capitalism and have flourished in societies such as the former Soviet Union that had never known a “bourgeois” phase.
Economic analysis demonstrates that the boom in sports participation and in sports spectatorship has depended on the increase of leisure time for the masses. Capitalistic entrepreneurship certainly played a role in the rationalization of sports into a marketable commodity. But the transformation of traditional pastimes into modern sports took place in the schools and universities as well as in business and industry. Modern baseball was formulated by a group of New York City players, but modern soccer was invented in the elite boys' schools of Victorian England, while rowing and track-and-field athletics took their modern forms in English and American colleges and universities. The 19th century's combination of Christian ethics and rationalized forms is best symbolized by the birth of basketball in 1891 at the YMCA Training School in Springfield, Mass., a stronghold of “muscular Christianity.”
While England may be considered the homeland of modern sports, modern physical education can be traced back to German and Scandinavian developments of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Men like Johann Christoph Friedrich Guts Muths in Germany and Per Henrik Ling in Sweden elaborated systems of exercise that were eventually adopted by British, American, and other schools. These noncompetitive alternatives to modern sports, which also flourished in the form of central European gymnastic displays, did not develop great popularity with schoolchildren or college students. Almost universal in the late 19th century, such gymnastic systems have by and large been replaced by competitive sports—with or without the notion that sports can be a vehicle of ethical instruction. Gymnastic displays can still be witnessed in the disciplined mass formations that accompany major sports competitions, particularly in the countries of eastern Europe. Modern-day individual gymnastics is itself an outgrowth of the earlier European gymnastics form.
While commercial motives encouraged promoters to stage sports events open to all who had the price of admission, class solidarity and exclusiveness led to the invention of the amateur rule, originally formulated in the 1870s to prevent the participation of all those who worked with their hands. The spread of egalitarian ideals and the avarice of individual athletes has had little to do with the demise of amateurism. Rather, barriers to overt professionalization eroded with the realization that the highest levels of physical achievement (and the richest harvest of national and international championships) require expenditures of time and money incompatible with a primary commitment to work or study. Once a university's prestige or a nation's image became dependent upon stellar athletic performances, it was no longer possible to limit the pool of talent to the leisure class. Now that the modern Olympic Games are open to men and women who may earn millions of dollars by their athletic prowess, it is quite improbable that what remains of the Victorian concept of amateur sports as an avocation can endure. The line between amateurism and professionalism has changed through time and will continue to be a point of controversy in sports as long as amateurism, however defined, is a requirement in world competitions.
Sociological, psychological, and physiological aspects
Sociological factors
Although the Dutch historian Johan Huizinga called attention to play as an aspect of culture in Homo Ludens (1938), his predilection for pageantry and for play tinged with religious ritual forced sociologists to devise alternative paradigms for the relationship of play to other activities. That relationship can be expressed in the form of a diagram:
Play can be conceptualized as either spontaneous or regulated. Regulated play—i.e., games—can be contests, like poker, or noncompetitive activities, like leapfrog. Contests can be purely intellectual, like chess, or a combination of physical and intellectual aspects, like rugby.
Preliterate societies
Competition is such an integral part of Western civilization that some anthropologists and sociologists assume that all games must be contests and are led, therefore, to assert that many preliterate cultures lack games. This assertion is questionable, but many cultures, including some of the most complex, have sought to diminish competition and have favoured noncompetitive games. Such cultures, like those of the Indian subcontinent, have tended to lag behind in the adoption of modern Western forms of sport. There are reasons, however, to suspect that competitiveness may be a universal trait. In Bali, for instance, where Hinduism is the dominant religion, direct social conflict is avoided wherever possible, but the mediated contest of the traditional cockfight indirectly arrays family against family and village against village as the Balinese excitedly bet large sums on the cocks with which they passionately identify.
Most preliterate peoples have sports of one sort or another. As indicated above, these sports are frequently if not invariably associated with cult. The natives of the American Southwest played a stickball game in which the role of the shaman was as important as that of the stick wielders. African youths wrestled one another as part of their rites of passage into manhood. Greek myths like that of swift-footed Atalanta, who said she would marry anyone who could outrun her, testify that footraces as a form of courtship survived into archaic times. The tendency to separate sports from the rest of culture gains strength as the division of labour in society becomes more complex, but the association of sports with the rest of culture has never been lost. An athletic image is almost as useful to the modern politician as it was to Amenhotep II.
Political influence
Politics are in fact an integral aspect of modern sports despite the efforts of some idealists to separate the two. Political decisions determine which sports will be encouraged (traditional or modern), how much public support will be available to promote recreational and elite sports, if differences in gender, race, religion, or ideology will be the basis of discrimination in sports, whether or not athletes will be free to compete in this or that international competition. All of these decisions have prompted bitter controversies, some of which have raged for decades. In nations once colonized by the British, such as Barbados, enthusiasm for cricket is associated with the continued influence of a foreign culture. In the former Soviet Union, the Politburo had to decide how much money to allocate for national teams of athletes who enhanced the system's prestige and how much to devote to facilities that were used by the masses. Women and blacks struggled for decades to achieve integration into the white male preserve of American sports; Jews and Communists were suddenly expelled from German sports clubs in 1933 (on the initiative of the clubs, which anticipated the politics of the Nazi regime). The ostracism of racially segregated South Africa and the use of Olympic boycotts as a means of protest are prime examples of political decisions affecting participation in international sports events.
Mass-media influence
That hundreds of millions of people now play sports on a regular basis and equally large numbers watch the Olympic Games and soccer's World Cup on television has enormous economic consequences. Most of the world's governments now have ministries of sport that budget large sums to construct sports facilities and otherwise promote recreational sports for the masses. Such ministries cooperate closely with national sports federations to finance research into “sport science” and to field elite representative teams for international events. Where private enterprise is encouraged, entrepreneurs market equipment, operate commercial sports facilities, and sponsor tournaments. They and other companies purchase sports-related television advertisements that in the late 20th century cost into the hundreds of thousands of dollars per minute.
The development of modern sports has been entwined with the growth of modern mass media. Each depends upon the other. Sports pages and specialized sports journals began to appear in the early 19th century when men such as Pierce Egan in England began to write in the colourfully metaphoric, argot-rich prose now recognized everywhere as typical of sportswriters. Thousands of specialized magazines are published, and sports dailies such as L'Equipe (France) or the Gazzetta dello sport (Italy) are common in many countries but less so in the United States. In the early 20th century U.S. radio and German television pioneered in the development of live sports coverage. In the latter half of the century it became customary for private and public television networks to broadcast 500 or more hours of sports annually. Multiyear contracts for television rights have cost commercial networks as much as $1,000,000,000 or more. Rights to the 1988 Olympics in Seoul and Calgary, Alta., were sold for more than $600,000,000. The popularity of televised sports events guarantees that the networks will continue to budget enormous sums for the rights to cover them and that commercial sponsors or governmental agencies will continue to underwrite these costs.
Psychological and physiological factors
Motivational factors
The psychological aspects of sports are more difficult to assess because factors such as motivation are more difficult to measure than the size of an audience or the amount of a contract. The psychological tests that have been administered have produced such a welter of contradictory results that many specialists are ready to abandon the attempt to pinpoint motives. Some generalizations, however, seem tenable. On the whole, physical fitness and the desire for simple relaxation seem to motivate those who shun competitive sports in favour of noncompetitive physical activities such as jogging, hiking, recreational swimming, and aerobics (although the development of aerobics contests testifies to the protean nature of the competitive urge). Important to those who choose sports is the challenge of the contest, the opportunity to test one's physical and mental skills against another person, against nature, or against the abstraction of the sports record. The choice of one sport over another depends on the cultural availability of the sport (few Laotians play baseball), on social group (few truck drivers own polo ponies), on gender (women are not supposed to box), and on individual temperament (some people cannot enjoy golf). There is reason to believe that the distinction between team sports, which emphasize cooperation within the contest, and individual sports, which call for a greater sense of autonomy, is a fundamental one, although an individual may enjoy both.
Mental preparation
The will to win is a powerful motive, and individual athletes as well as coaches and administrators have studied such matters as the most efficient type of leadership and the optimal level of pregame stress. Psychologists differ among themselves, but some contend that democratic leadership produces greater individual satisfaction while authoritarian leadership provides “results” (i.e., a higher level of achievement and, consequently, more victories). Many psychological studies have shown that female athletes tend to attribute failure to their lack of effort or skill while male athletes point to external factors such as luck or the strength of the opposition. It has also been established that the ideal level of pregame stress falls between utter relaxation and hypertension and depends in part on the sport; successful archery, for instance, calls for less pre-match aggressiveness than rugby does. Athletes in many sports such as golf, tennis, diving, high jumping, and pole vaulting, where form and timing are crucial, often resort to a different method of pregame “psyching” called imaging or visualizing. This does not so much build aggressiveness as write a visual mental script to be followed in the contest to come.
Induced aggressiveness is, of course, a common technique, but “psyched-up” players can be a menace to themselves and others. Injuries are but one consequence. As the desire to win increases in intensity, especially when the players symbolically represent schools, cities, nations, races, religions, or ideologies, considerations of fair play are liable to be lost in the scuffle. In such situations aggressiveness on the field is often accompanied by violence in the stands, where crowd psychology operates (often in conjunction with alcohol) to reduce normal inhibitions on rowdy behaviour.
Crowd behaviour
Sports-related spectator violence is, however, often more strongly associated with social group than with the specific nature of the sport itself. Roman gladiatorial combats were, for example, history's most violent sport, but the closely supervised spectators, carefully segregated by social class and gender, rarely rioted. In modern times, association football is certainly less violent than rugby, but “soccer hooliganism” is a worldwide phenomenon, while spectator violence associated with the more upper-class but rougher sport of rugby has been minimal. Similarly, crowds at baseball games have been more unruly than the generally more affluent and better-educated fans of American football, although football is unquestionably the rougher sport. Efforts of the police to curb sports-related violence are often counterproductive because the young working-class males responsible for most of the trouble are frequently hostile to the authorities. Media coverage of disturbances can also act to exaggerate their importance and to stimulate the crowd behaviour simultaneously condemned and sensationalized, as is violence on the field. The frequent fights between National Hockey League players seem to be a consistent feature of sports highlights on television.
Drug usage
Drug abuse must be considered among the other unfortunate aspects of modern sports. The misuse of amphetamines, anabolic steroids, and other drugs has become a central problem of modern sports. One of the touted values of sports is that they better one's health. Pursued in moderation, they certainly do improve muscle tone, increase cardiovascular efficiency, and retard skeletal decalcification. When sports become an obsession, however, they tend ironically to have the opposite effect. The human body is thought of not as a part of the self but as the self's instrument, something to be used and abused. In pursuit of the absolute maximum achievement, 19th-century cyclists began to drug themselves with caffeine and strychnine; some died from the effects of the drugs. Modern chemistry has greatly enlarged the possibilities of artificial stimulation. In the late 20th century came widespread use of amphetamines and anabolic steroids. The former permit athletes to draw upon their physical reserves and continue despite the extremes of exhaustion until they collapse and, occasionally, die. Steroids are thought to increase muscle mass and muscular strength, but the side effects include damage to various organs and, in the case of women, masculinization (e.g., facial hair, deeper voices). Efforts of the International Olympic Committee to limit drug abuse have often been frustrated by national Olympic committees determined upon sports victories at any cost. Efforts to control drug abuse in professional sports and in intercollegiate athletics have frequently been countered by the athletes' concerns regarding personal privacy. Nevertheless, in the United States, codes of varying strictness have been imposed in different sports, part of which includes the requirement of periodic testing for drug use. Olympic athletes now undergo testing prior to participation.
Scientific training
Quite apart from drug abuse, publicly deplored even by some of the abusers, there is the trend to scientific training, which is practiced by most modern countries, and which Germany has developed to a high degree of expertise. While no one questions the instrumental efficiency of such training, there is reason to ask, as have neo-Marxist scholars, whether sports—once conceived as an alternative to work—have not become work's mirror image. The pervasive popularity of modern sports, for children as well as for adults, suggests that the answer must still be negative. Sports continue to be perceived as a domain of freedom unlike what most people experience at work. Almost everyone has experienced the joy of sports. Nevertheless, reflective observers will continue to ponder the pros and cons of the modern drive to instrumentalize the body and to rationalize sports in a quest for the ultimate possible athletic performance.
Allen Guttmann
Additional Reading
General works
Robert J. Higgs, Sports: A Reference Guide (1982), offers analyses of scholarly and popular literature on sports. An overview of sports literature is presented in Sport Bibliography, 11 vol. (1981–83), prepared by the Sport Information Resource Centre and continued by annual supplements. John Arlott (ed.), The Oxford Companion to World Sports and Games (1975); and Frank G. Menke, The Encyclopedia of Sports, 6th rev. ed., revised by Pete Palmer (1977), provide brief historical descriptions of many sports and games. For information on equipment, dress, facilities, and differences in rules, see the Official Rules of Sports & Games (biennial).
History
See Richard D. Mandell, Sport, a Cultural History (1984); Wolfgang Decker, Sport und Spiel im Alten Ägypten (1987); Ingomar Weiler, Der Sport bei den Völkern der Alten Welt (1981); and Jacques Ulmann, De la gymnastique aux sports modernes: histoire des doctrines de l'éducation physique, 3rd rev. ed. (1977). Competitive sports are surveyed historically in William J. Baker, Sports in the Western World (1982). Sports history in individual countries is discussed in: (Italy): William Heywood, Palio and Ponte: An Account of the Sports of Central Italy from the Age of Dante to the XXth Century (1904, reprinted 1969); (France): Richard Holt, Sport and Society in Modern France (1981); (Britain): Dennis Brailsford, Sport and Society: Elizabeth to Anne (1969); J.A. Mangan, Athleticism in the Victorian and Edwardian Public School: The Emergence and Consolidation of an Educational Ideology (1981, reissued 1986); and John Hargreaves, Sport, Power, and Culture: Social and Historical Analysis of Popular Sports in Britain (1986); (Socialist countries): James Riordan, Sport in Soviet Society: Development of Sport and Physical Education in Russia and the USSR (1977); and James Riordan (ed.), Sport Under Communism: The U.S.S.R., Czechoslovakia, the G.D.R., China, Cuba, 2nd rev. ed. (1981); (Canada): Alan Metcalfe, Canada Learns to Play: The Emergence of Organized Sport, 1807–1914 (1987); (United States): Benjamin G. Rader, American Sports: From the Age of Folk Games to the Age of Spectators (1983); and Allen Guttmann, A Whole New Ball Game: An Interpretation of American Sports (1988).
