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Athletics Track Field

The fastest, strongest, highest — Olympic track and field from Jesse Owens to Usain Bolt.

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About

Track and field — running (sprints, middle and long distance, hurdles, steeplechase), jumping (high jump, long jump, triple jump, pole vault), and throwing (shot put, discus, hammer, javelin) — is the oldest Olympic sport, dating to the ancient Greek games (776 BCE). It is the centerpiece of the modern Olympics. Usain Bolt (Jamaica) holds both the 100m (9.58 seconds) and 200m (19.19 seconds) world records — margins so large that experts predict they will stand for decades. Jesse Owens' four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics (in front of Hitler) remain sport's most politically significant individual performance. Florence Griffith-Joyner's 1988 world records (100m: 10.49s, 200m: 21.34s) remain unbroken 36 years later, though questions about drug use persist. Eliud Kipchoge's sub-2-hour marathon (1:59:40, 2019) stands as the greatest individual distance running achievement.

# Top 10 track and field moments

  1. 1Jesse Owens 4 golds Berlin 1936
  2. 2Roger Bannister first sub-4-minute mile (1954)
  3. 3Usain Bolt 9.58s (2009)
  4. 4Flo-Jo 1988 records
  5. 5Nadia Comaneci parallel
  6. 6Carl Lewis 9 Olympic golds
  7. 7Hicham El Guerrouj mile record
  8. 8Seb Coe and Steve Ovett rivalry
  9. 9Bob Beamon long jump (1968, record stood 23 years)
  10. 10Cathy Freeman 400m 2000 Sydney

Fascinating Facts

  • ◆Usain Bolt's 9.58-second 100m world record (2009) was run at an average speed of 37.6 km/h — his top speed was 44.72 km/h, making him the fastest human ever recorded
  • ◆Jesse Owens won 4 gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics — in front of Adolf Hitler, whose theory of Aryan superiority was directly challenged by an African-American's dominance
  • ◆Roger Bannister ran the first sub-4-minute mile (3:59.4) on May 6, 1954 — within 46 days, two other runners had also broken the barrier, confirming that it was a psychological rather than physical limit
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