American Anna Hall produced an incredible 7,032-point heptathlon at Gotzis, Austria, putting her third all-time and one spot ahead of Thiam. A jumps and hurdles specialist, the Belgian has been the heptathlete to beat since 2016 — she is one of just five women to break the 7,000-point barrier. Frenchman Azeddine Habz has the world-leading time (3min 27.49s).

World Athletics became involved in annual one-day meetings as the sport began to balance between team play and individual level professionalise in the late 1970s. To receive certification, venues are required to submit measurement reports of their track and field facilities. The new regulations also reduced the testosterone limit for androgen-sensitive XY DSD athletes to 2.5 nmol/L and extended the limit to apply to all women’s events, where it had previously only applied to track events of distances between 400 m and one mile.

The most common events in modern competition are over 10 km, 20 km and 50 km on roads, although women’s 3 km and men’s 5 km are held on indoor tracks. The sport took on an endurance aspect and competitions were held over long distances or walkers would have to achieve a certain distance within a specified time frame, such as Centurion contests of walking 100 miles (160 km) within 24 hours. Fell running and Orienteering are other competitive sports similar to cross country, although they feature an element of navigation which is absent from the set courses of cross country.

About World Athletics team

An international governing body, the International Amateur Athletics Federation (IAAF), was founded in 1912. A small number of half marathons and road mile races, including the Great North Run, attract similar attention. Big city marathons such as New York, Boston, Chicago, London and Tokyo are major televised events in their respective cities, and often attract thousands of entrants and tens of thousands of spectators, for whom the event is usually free as it takes place on normal city roads. An athletics competition was included in the first modern Olympic Games in 1896 and it has been as one of the foremost competitions at the quadrennial multi-sport event ever since. The United States also began holding an annual national competition – the USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships – first held in 1876 by the New York Athletic Club.

Men’s pole vault: Mondo Duplantis vs the world record

• Since 2008, Matt has been charged with managing the company’s digital, video and social media assets in all events and athlete web related outreach, handling the processing of GA&M athlete visas, as well as managing GA&M’s developing marathon talent in Ethiopia.
• Inaugurated in 1973, the annual IAAF World Cross Country Championships remains the pinnacle of competition in the sport.
• In June 2016, following a meeting of the IAAF’s ruling council, World Athletics upheld its ban on Russia’s track and field team from entering the Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
• Duplantis, 25, was also full of praise for Emmanouil Karalis, the Greek vaulter who is his closest competitor, having vaulted 6.08m this year to set a national record.
• From 2025 onwards, the World Athletics Council has given the green light to a proposal restructuring the summer track and field season.

Six sub-10.70s clockings included a first national title in early August, and a 10.65s run that moved her up to joint-fifth on the all-time list. He has performed excellently in 2025, running under 9.90s five times, including wins at the Lausanne and London Diamond League meets. They have only raced once since, when the Jamaican won at the Silesia Diamond League, tying the meet record (9.87 seconds) ahead of Lyles, who produced a season’s best 9.90s. The 2025 track and field season reaches its crescendo at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, Japan. Documentaries are also common with examples such as 2007 film Spirit of the Marathon, which follows runners’ preparations for the 2005 Chicago Marathon. Athletics was much respected in Ancient Greece and the events within the ancient pentathlon provided inspiration for large statues such as the Discobolus and Discophoros, and for motifs on countless vase and pottery works.

Instead, the term track and field is predominantly used in the United States and Canada to refer to athletics competitions. In many parts of North America, the term athletics is commonly used to refer to sports in general, reflecting its historical usage. The most prestigious global season-long leagues in the sport are the Diamond League for track and field athletes, and the World Marathon Majors in marathon running. The foremost international athletics meeting is the World Athletics Championships, which incorporates track and field, marathon running and race walking.

• The process to found World Athletics began in Stockholm, Sweden, on 18 July 1912 soon after the completion of the 1912 Summer Olympics in that city.
• Discrete track and field competitions are found at national championships-level and also at annual, invitational track and field meets.
• The records revealed that, between 2001 and 2012, athletes with suspicious drug test results won a third of the medals in endurance events at the Olympics and World Championships—a total of 146 medals including 55 golds—but the World Athletics caught none of them.
• In modern times, athletes can receive money for racing, putting an end to the so-called “amateurism” that existed before.
• The World Athletics Indoor Championships is a biennial athletics championships which features solely indoor track and field events.
• Annual one-day meetings and races form the most basic level of competition and are the most common format of athletics contests.

There is no limit to the number of age groupings, hence Stanisław Kowalski holds a world record for men aged 105 years and over. Age categories are more extensive for older athletes and these are commonly organised under the umbrella of masters athletics, which has age groups spanning five years for all athletes aged 35 and above. Beyond international rules, different youth categories are in use in the sport, often in the form of two-year or single age groupings. During this period, racewalking was frequently held on athletics tracks for ease of measurement, and the 1908 Summer Olympics in London saw the introduction of the 3500-metre and 10-mile walks.

Ancient

The IAAF World Championships in Athletics and the Summer Olympics feature the marathon as the sole road running event, with the annual IAAF World Half Marathon Championships also taking place. Road racing events can vary greatly in distance, but the most common and well-known are the marathon, half marathon, 10 km, and 5 km. Beyond being a popular recreational activity, elite marathon races are a major draw in athletics.

Distance running, particularly in athletics, plays a significant role in other organised sports like triathlon and modern pentathlon. At international championships, athletes’ performances are often aggregated by country, with cross country and road races sometimes declaring a team victor based on top athletes’ finishes or times. Over time, competitions expanded to include athletes with various disabilities, such as amputation, cerebral palsy, visual impairment, and wheelchair events. Athletes’ increasing influence led to remuneration, prompting the IAAF to introduce the IAAF Golden Events series and the first outdoor World Championships in 1983. In the 1970s, the International Track Association briefly established a professional track and field circuit in the United States. Professional competition gained traction as the century progressed, becoming more common.

World Athletics was established to address the need for a global governing body, a competition programme, standardised equipment, and official world records. The men’s 4 × 100 metres relay has seen five world records set between 1983 and 2011. Usain Bolt and Carl Lewis have broken the most world records at the competition, with four and three respectively. Double Olympic champion Armand ‘Mondo’ Duplantis is aiming for a third-straight world title, having set the world record 13 times.

The annual World Athletics Half Marathon Championships (formerly IAAF World Half Marathon Championships) is the premier standalone road running event. The World Athletics Cross Country Championships, held annually since 1973, is the global championship for cross country running. Road running, racewalking, and track and field are the sports featured in the competition.