60 Fun Facts About Track and Field

What is Usain Bolt's 100 m world record, set at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin?

He took the record down by 0.11 seconds, the biggest improvement since electronic timing began; his 19.19 in the 200 m came at the same meet.

How many Olympic gold medals did Usain Bolt win?

He also collected eleven world titles; his only slip was a false start in the 2011 world 100 m final.

How many events make up the decathlon?

They run over two days, from the 100 m to the 1500 m; the winner is traditionally called the world's greatest athlete, a line King Gustav V used on Jim Thorpe in 1912.

Which event closes the decathlon?

Kevin Mayer's world record of 9,126 points, set in 2018, is the only score above Ashton Eaton's 9,045.

Which Frenchman holds the decathlon world record of 9,126 points?

He set it at the 2018 Decastar and is only the third man to pass 9,000 points.

How many events are in the women's heptathlon?

It replaced the pentathlon in the early 1980s by adding the javelin and the 200 m.

Whose heptathlon world record of 7,291 points, set at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, still stands?

Sports Illustrated for Women later voted her the greatest female athlete of all time, just ahead of Babe Zaharias.

Which Belgian became the first athlete to win three Olympic multi-event golds, in the heptathlon?

She carried Belgium's flag at the Tokyo opening ceremony.

What is the official distance of a marathon?

That is 26 miles 385 yards; the distance was only standardised in 1921, a quarter-century after the first Olympic marathon.

The marathon takes its name from the legend of which Greek messenger?

In the story he ran about 40 km from the battlefield to Athens, announced victory over the Persians and dropped dead.

In what year did the marathon distance become standardised at 42.195 km?

French philologist Michel Bréal dreamt up the event for the first modern Olympics in Athens in 1896.

Which Ethiopian won the 1960 Olympic marathon in Rome running barefoot?

He won again in Tokyo in 1964, the first man to defend an Olympic marathon title.

Eliud Kipchoge ran 1:59:40 for the marathon distance in Vienna in 2019 in an event with what name?

It did not count as a record because of the pacing and drinks arrangements; his official best came in Berlin, where he has won five times.

Which Kenyan broke Eliud Kipchoge's marathon world record at the 2023 Chicago Marathon?

Kipchoge had held the record since 2018 and is the 2016 and 2020 Olympic champion.

Which is the world's oldest annual marathon, first run in 1897?

It is held on Patriots' Day, the third Monday in April, and was inspired by the 1896 Olympic race.

Emil Zátopek, who won three distance golds at the 1952 Olympics, had what nickname?

He decided at the last minute to enter the marathon, the first he had ever run, and remains the only person to win all three at one Games.

How many gold medals did Jesse Owens win at the 1936 Berlin Olympics?

100 m, 200 m, long jump and 4x100 relay; a year earlier he had set five world records and tied a sixth in 45 minutes at Ann Arbor.

How far did Bob Beamon jump at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics?

He beat the old record by 55 cm and it took Mike Powell almost 23 years to better it.

Who set the men's long jump world record of 8.95 m at the 1991 Tokyo World Championships?

Carl Lewis also passed Beamon's mark that night, but his jump was wind-assisted.

How many Olympic gold medals did Carl Lewis win?

He won the long jump at four straight Games, matching discus thrower Al Oerter's feat of four consecutive golds in one event.

The back-first high jump technique that won gold at the 1968 Olympics is named after which American?

A local paper's caption 'Fosbury Flops Over Bar' gave it the name; deep foam landing mats made it possible.

Whose 1993 men's high jump world record of 2.45 m is the longest-standing in the event?

Ukraine's Yaroslava Mahuchikh set the women's record of 2.10 m in 2024.

Pole vaulter Armand 'Mondo' Duplantis competes for Sweden but was born and raised in which US state?

He grew up in Lafayette and won a world youth title at 15 in 2015.

How much does the men's shot weigh in open competition?

That is 16 pounds, the same as the men's hammer; throwers use either the glide or the spin.

Which American is the only three-time Olympic shot put champion and holds the world record of 23.56 m?

He won in Rio, Tokyo and Paris and set the outdoor record in May 2023.

Why was the men's javelin redesigned in 1986?

Uwe Hohn's 104.80 m record was wiped out; Jan Zelezny's 98.48 m from 1996 is the mark under the new spec.

Which ancient Greek statue by Myron shows a discus thrower and gave its name to the classic pose?

A Czech thrower named Janda-Suk worked out a new rotational technique from studying the statue.

How many hurdles does a runner clear in the 110 m hurdles?

They stand 42 inches high; the race was once run as the 120-yard hurdles.

What is Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone's 400 m hurdles world record, set at the 2024 Paris Olympics?

She has broken her own record repeatedly and also holds the American record for the flat 400 m.

How long is the passing zone in the 4x100 m relay since the 2017 rule change?

The old 20 m box and 10 m acceleration zone were merged into one; the outgoing runner cannot touch the baton before it enters.

At the Paris 2024 Olympics, a reaction time faster than what was ruled a false start?

Since 2009 a single false start means disqualification, which is how Bolt lost the 2011 world 100 m final.

The invention of starting blocks in 1929 is credited to a father and son from which country?

Modern record-eligible blocks carry pressure sensors that time the athlete's reaction.

How long is lane one of a standard outdoor running track?

Franklin Field in Philadelphia is a famous exception where the 400 m distance falls in lane 4.

Who ran the first sub-four-minute mile, on 6 May 1954 at Oxford?

He was a medical student who became a neurologist; Landy joined him under four minutes just 46 days later.

Which Moroccan holds the 1500 m world record and held the mile record of 3:43.13 for 27 years?

In Athens in 2004 he became the first man since Paavo Nurmi to win the 1500 m and 5000 m at one Games.

Which Kenyan is the only three-time Olympic champion in the women's 1500 m?

She won in Rio, Tokyo and Paris and holds the world records for both 1500 m and the mile.

Which upright-style sprinter won both the 200 m and 400 m at Atlanta 1996 in gold shoes?

He is still the only man to do that double, and his upright, short-stepping style broke every coaching rule.

Which South African broke a 17-year-old 400 m world record in Rio in 2016 with 43.03?

He is the first man to run under 10, 20 and 44 seconds for 100, 200 and 400 m; his coach was a great-grandmother in her seventies.

Florence Griffith Joyner's women's 100 m world record, still unbeaten, was set in what year?

She ran it at the US Olympic Trials, then took three golds in Seoul; she was known for her long painted nails.

Which American, who had polio as a child, won three sprint golds at the 1960 Rome Olympics?

She took the 100 m, 200 m and 4x100 relay.

Which Australian lit the cauldron at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and then won the 400 m?

At 16 she had become the first Indigenous Australian woman to win Commonwealth Games gold.

How many total Olympic medals has Allyson Felix won, the most by any woman in track and field?

They came across five Games; in 2021 she became the first female track athlete with seven Olympic golds.

Which Finn set 22 world records and won nine Olympic golds in the 1920s?

In Paris in 1924 he won the 1500 m and 5000 m with less than two hours between the finals.

Which Ethiopian held both the 5,000 m and 10,000 m world records from 2004 to 2020?

He won both events in Beijing in 2008 after taking 10,000 m gold and 5,000 m silver in Athens.

Before Mo Farah, who was the only man to win the 5,000 m and 10,000 m at consecutive Olympics?

The Finn did it in 1972 and 1976.

How many world records did Haile Gebrselassie set in his career?

He also broke 61 Ethiopian national records and won four straight Berlin Marathons.

Which sprinter completed the 100 m, 200 m and 4x100 m triple at the 2023 World Championships in Budapest?

He then won the Paris 2024 100 m by five thousandths of a second.

Which Venezuelan holds the women's triple jump world record of 15.74 m?

She is nicknamed la reina del triple salto and won Olympic gold in Tokyo.

Which Briton won Olympic decathlon gold in both 1980 and 1984?

He only tried the decathlon because another of his coach's athletes had chickenpox, and broke the world record four times.

Which double Olympic 1500 m champion became president of World Athletics in 2015?

He won in Moscow and Los Angeles, and his 1981 800 m world record stood until 1997.

In which year were the first full World Athletics Championships held, in Helsinki?

They are now held every two years; before that, world titles were effectively decided at the Olympics.

How much does the men's hammer weigh?

It is a metal ball on a steel wire with a grip; the women's weighs 4 kg.

The world's first modern athletics club was founded in 1857 at which university?

Oxford followed in 1860, and the two began an annual varsity match in 1864.

Relay races grew out of 1880s US charity races between which workers, who passed a red pennant?

The 4x100 m and 4x400 m both joined the Olympic programme at the 1912 Stockholm Games.

Which two steeplechase distances were run at the 1900 Summer Olympics?

The 3000 m steeplechase only became the standard event from the 1920 Games onward.

Which 1950s shot putter popularised the 'glide' technique and broke the world record 17 times?

The rival rotational 'spin' technique was introduced by Aleksandr Baryshnikov and Brian Oldfield in 1976.

The history of the discus throw, part of the ancient pentathlon, dates back to which year?

The ancient standing throw from a pedestal was revived for the 1896 Olympics before the turning style took over by 1912.

How long was the track at the Panathinaiko Stadium for the 1896 Olympics?

Lengths varied wildly early on; the 1904 Olympic track at Francis Field was a third of a mile before the IAAF standardised 400 m.

Which former athlete introduced the hollow and then the metal javelin in the 1950s?

Miklós Németh later invented the rough-tailed javelin, which was banned in 1991 and erased from the record books.

Which part of the body decides a runner's finishing position when it reaches the line?

Head, neck, arms, legs, hands and feet do not count, which is why sprinters dip at the tape.