🏃Glossary

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Baton Baton

The hollow cylindrical tube relay runners carry and pass. What's timed is the baton, not the runner, so the race isn't over until the baton crosses the line. It must be passed hand to hand inside the take-over zone; if it's dropped, the runner who dropped it must retrieve it, and straying into another lane while doing so is a disqualification. Its weight, length and circumference are all regulated and it's supplied by the meet organizer.

Break line Break line

The curved line marking the point where runners starting in lanes may cut in toward the inside. In the 800m it comes at the end of the first curve; in the 4x400m relay, runners hold their lane through the first leg and into the second leg's first curve before breaking at this line. The scramble for the inside position happens right here, producing most jostling and obstruction calls, and runners who force their way in too aggressively are often disqualified.

Decathlon Decathlon

The men's multi-event discipline, contested over two days across ten events. Day one covers the 100m, long jump, shot put, high jump and 400m; day two runs the 110m hurdles, discus, pole vault, javelin and 1500m. Each mark converts to a standard points table and the totals are summed; 8,000 points is world-class and 9,000 has been cleared by only a handful of athletes ever. This event is the origin of calling its winner 'the world's greatest athlete.'

Discus throw Discus throw

An event in which the athlete spins one and a half turns inside a circle before releasing the discus, using a 2kg implement for men and 1kg for women. Because the discus glides on the air, it is one of the rare events where a headwind actually helps distance. The discus's tilt and angle at release matter as much as its speed, and it is always thrown inside a tall, C-shaped safety cage to prevent errant throws from causing injury.

Drive phase Drive phase

The first 20-30 metres out of the starting blocks, during which the body stays low and angled forward while pushing hard against the ground to build speed. Standing up too early here means the speed lost is never recovered, however well the rest of the race is run, and a large share of sprint coaching focuses on how long this phase can be held. The 100m is standardly analyzed in four phases: drive, transition, top speed and deceleration.

False start False start

Leaving the blocks before the gun, or reacting within 0.100 seconds of it. That figure is treated as the physical floor for a human to hear a sound and react, so anything faster is ruled an anticipated start rather than a genuine reaction. Since 2010, a single false start in an individual event has meant instant disqualification with no warning, and Usain Bolt's disqualification in the 2011 Daegu World Championships 100m final under this rule is the most famous case.

Fosbury Flop Fosbury Flop

The high jump technique of clearing the bar back-first, which became known to the world when Dick Fosbury won gold with it at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. Using the rotation created by a curved, J-shaped approach, the jumper arches the back over the bar and kicks the legs up last. Because it lets the body's center of mass pass below the bar itself, it was more efficient than any previous technique and displaced every rival method within a decade.

Hammer throw Hammer throw

An event in which the athlete spins a steel ball attached to a handle by a wire cable three or four times before releasing it, using the same weights as the shot put: 7.26kg for men, 4kg for women. Because rotational speed converts directly to distance, the force the athlete must resist at release can reach the equivalent of 300kg. It absolutely cannot be practiced without a safety cage, which is why in the US and UK, places open to the general public to practice this event are effectively limited to college and dedicated throws-club facilities.

Heat Heat

A qualifying round that splits entrants into groups to narrow the field down to finalists. In track events, a set number of top finishers from each heat automatically advance, with remaining spots filled by the fastest overall times not otherwise qualified — a process called qualifying on time. Field events split entrants into groups too, but a competitor who clears a set qualifying mark advances regardless of ranking, with remaining spots filled by the next-best marks if too few clear it.

Heptathlon Heptathlon

The women's multi-event discipline, contested over two days across seven events. Day one covers the 100m hurdles, high jump, shot put and 200m; day two finishes with the long jump, javelin and 800m. Marks convert to points the same way as the decathlon; scores in the 6,000s reach an international final, and only a handful of athletes in history have ever broken 7,000. Rankings frequently flip in the closing 800m, so pacing fitness across the two days decides the result.

High jump High jump

An event in which the athlete runs a curved approach and clears a raised bar, using almost exclusively the back-first Fosbury Flop today. The bar rises in fixed increments, and the athlete chooses which height to attempt. Three consecutive failures at the same height ends the competition, and ties are broken first by fewest failures at the height that decided it, then by fewest failures across the whole competition. The world record is Javier Sotomayor's 2.45m, set in 1993.

Hurdles Hurdles

A sprint event run over ten evenly spaced barriers. The men's 110m uses a height of 1.067m and the women's 100m 0.838m; the 400m hurdles is lower at 0.914m for men and 0.762m for women. Hurdles are designed to topple if struck, so knocking one down carries no penalty, only lost time. Elite men take eight steps to the first hurdle and exactly three steps between hurdles afterward.

Interval training Interval training

Training that alternates fast segments and recovery segments a set number of times. Emil Zatopek popularized an extreme version of it in the 1950s, and it is now the basic training method across every distance. A typical session might run 400m at goal race pace ten times, jogging 200m to recover between each. Beginners should start with once a week — running every repeat flat out produces injury faster than it produces improvement.

Javelin throw Javelin throw

An event in which the athlete sprints down a runway and throws the javelin from behind a curved foul line, using 800g for men and 600g for women. The tip must strike the ground first to count, though it doesn't have to stick in. The men's javelin was redesigned in 1986 to move its center of gravity forward, specifically because throws had started clearing the field and creating safety concerns. The load on the shoulder and elbow is severe enough that throwing hard without technique causes immediate injury.

Long jump Long jump

An event in which the athlete sprints down the runway, takes off from the board, and lands in a sand pit. Distance is measured from the take-off line to the nearest mark left in the sand. Overstepping the board by even a centimetre voids the entire attempt, and a foul still counts toward the athlete's six allowed attempts. Approach speed is the single biggest factor in distance, making it effectively a sprinter's event, and marks are not recognized as records if the tailwind exceeds 2.0 metres per second.

Marathon Marathon

A road event run over 42.195km. The distance was fixed to suit the royal viewing box at the 1908 London Olympics and became the official standard in 1921. The men's world record is Kelvin Kiptum's 2:00:35, set in Chicago in 2023. A first target for hobbyists is typically finishing under four hours, and breaking three hours is commonly called 'sub-3.'

Masters athletics Masters athletics

A competitive system for adults, outside student or professional ranks, divided into age brackets and open to every event. US and UK meets typically divide competitors into five-year age brackets starting at age 30-35 and open track, jumps and throws alike. It's effectively the only route for an adult to compete in official track and field events, and because entrants per age bracket are often so few, placing at a first-ever meet isn't unusual.

Pacemaker Pacemaker

A runner hired to lead a record attempt at a set pace before dropping out before the finish, sometimes called a rabbit. Meet organizers hire pacemakers specifically because they block the wind and take the burden of pace judgment off the athlete chasing a time. They are never used in championship finals where only placing matters, which is exactly why the same athlete's times at Diamond League-style meets and at World Championships can differ so widely.

Pass Pass

In high jump and pole vault, the choice to skip the current height and move straight to the next. It conserves energy and can protect a favorable tie-break record of failures, but it's also a gamble — if failures pile up at the higher height after passing, the competition simply ends there. An athlete can also carry a remaining attempt forward to the next height after a failure, which turns a close competition into pure psychological warfare.

Personal best Personal best

An athlete's own best time or mark set in a sanctioned competition, abbreviated PB or PR. Athletics is a sport where beating this number matters almost as much as beating an opponent, so even at a local meet, competitors check for a new PB before checking the results sheet. Indoor and outdoor bests, and the current season's best, are all tracked separately, and a mark set beyond the wind assistance limit is kept only as a reference and does not count as an official PB.

Photo finish Photo finish

The device that decides placing using a line-scan camera capturing thousands of frames per second at the finish line. The rule is the instant the torso reaches the vertical plane of the finish line — the head, arms and legs don't count. Official times are read to the thousandth of a second but published rounded up to the hundredth, which is why two athletes can show the identical published time yet be placed differently.

Pole vault Pole vault

An event in which the athlete sprints down the runway carrying a flexible pole, plants it in a box, and rides its rebound over a raised bar. Approach speed, accuracy of the plant, and the swing that inverts the body in the air all have to line up in sequence. Like the high jump, the athlete chooses which height to attempt and the competition ends after three consecutive failures. Armand Duplantis has recently pushed the world record above 6.3m, rewriting the event's entire baseline.

Race walking Race walking

An event in which one foot must appear to remain in contact with the ground at all times, and the leading knee must stay straight from the moment of landing until it passes under the body. Judges make this call by eye, issuing red cards for loss of contact or a bent knee, and an athlete is disqualified after receiving cards from three different judges. World Championships are held over 20km and 35km, and major meets require athletes to serve time penalties in a designated penalty zone.

Relay Relay

A team event in which four athletes carry a baton in succession, run as the 4x100m, 4x400m and mixed 4x400m. The handoff must be completed inside a 30-metre take-over zone, and a team is disqualified outright if the zone is missed or the baton is dropped outside a lane. Handoff precision decides results more than the sum of the four athletes' individual times, which is why a team of the world's fastest sprinters can still be eliminated in qualifying by a single bad exchange.

Runway Runway

The straight or curved approach path used in jumps and the javelin, run right up to the moment of takeoff or release. The long jump and triple jump use a straight runway of 40 metres or more up to the board, the pole vault's runway leads into the box, and the high jump's is a curved, J-shaped approach. Athletes count their own strides to fix a starting mark, and being off by even one or two strides causes repeated fouls that can waste an entire attempt.

Shot put Shot put

An event in which the athlete pushes a metal ball from the shoulder inside a 2.135m circle, using 7.26kg for men and 4kg for women. It must be a pushing motion rather than a throw, and dropping the ball behind the shoulder line voids the attempt. There are two competing techniques, the straight-line glide across the circle and the spin technique borrowed from the discus, and the spin, which can generate more speed, has become the dominant modern style.

Sit and kick Sit and kick

A middle-distance tactic of tucking in behind the leader to conserve energy, then exploding with a sudden surge in the final lap or final 200m. It's the standard approach in championship finals where placing matters more than time, which is why those races often run slow early and unusually fast over the last 400m. A runner without a strong closing kick has to do the opposite — pushing the pace early to burn off an opponent's finishing speed before it can be used.

Spikes Spikes

Competition shoes with metal pins in the forefoot to grip the track surface. Sprint spikes have a stiff sole and a forward-shifted foot position; distance spikes have fewer pins and more cushioning. Allowed pin length varies by meet, and indoor tracks generally cap it at 6mm. They load the Achilles and calves heavily, so beginners should build a base in training shoes first and adapt to spikes over short segments.

Split time Split time

The time recorded at a set checkpoint within a longer distance — one lap of 400m on a track, or usually every 5km in a marathon. Converting a goal time into target splits lets a runner catch an early overpace immediately, preventing a large share of failed road-race finishes. In practice this is tracked with a watch's lap button or a GPS watch's auto-lap feature, and on a track, one lap is simply one split.

Stagger Stagger

The staggered starting-line arrangement, pushing outer lanes progressively forward around a curve so every runner covers the same actual distance. It's why the 200m and 400m starting lines appear to be offset from each other. As a result, an outer-lane runner races without being able to see the field behind, while an inner-lane runner fights a tighter curve; the middle lanes are considered most favorable and are assigned by qualifying time.

Starting blocks Starting blocks

The fixed footplates a sprinter pushes off from a crouched start in events of 400m and under, plus the hurdles. Athletes set their feet at 'on your marks,' rise into position at 'set,' hold still, and react to the gun. Blocks contain pressure sensors that measure reaction time to the thousandth of a second and automatically flag false starts. Elite sprinters typically react in around 0.13 seconds.

Steeplechase Steeplechase

A 3000m event that includes fixed barriers that don't topple and a water jump. Over the full race, athletes clear 28 barriers and 7 water jumps, and stepping on the barrier before the water jump is legal. Barrier height is 0.914m for men and 0.762m for women. Because the barriers, unlike hurdles, don't fall when struck, a mistimed clearance can cause a serious injury, making dedicated technique training essential.

Super shoes Super shoes

Racing shoes with a thick, high-rebound foam midsole and an embedded carbon plate that reduces energy loss on each stride. Since 2017 they have rewritten road records at a pace that has made cross-generation comparisons of records genuinely contentious. World Athletics has capped road-shoe sole thickness at 40mm and requires shoes to be commercially available before a competition. US and UK retail prices run $220-320, and they wear out faster than a standard training shoe.

Take-off board Take-off board

The 20cm-wide wooden board embedded at the end of the long jump and triple jump runway, marking the line the jump is measured from. A strip of plasticine sits just past the board's front edge so any foot that oversteps leaves an immediate, visible mark. Athletes arrive at nearly full speed and have to place a foot on this narrow board within centimetres — overstepping is a foul, and being overly cautious costs distance outright.

Take-over zone Take-over zone

The 30-metre zone in a relay within which the baton must be exchanged. A team is disqualified if the handoff isn't completed inside this zone, and the rule is judged by the baton's position, not the runners'. In the 4x100m, the outgoing runner doesn't look back and reaches a hand behind blind, so the timing of when the incoming runner's foot hits a pre-marked check mark on the runway is effectively the entire skill.

Tapering Tapering

The planned reduction of training volume over the two to three weeks before a target competition, done to shed accumulated fatigue and peak condition. The key is cutting distance sharply while holding intensity — dropping intensity too makes the body feel flat instead of sharp. Marathoners typically taper three weeks, track athletes one to two. Training harder out of pre-race nerves is the single most common mistake beginners make.

Throwing sector Throwing sector

The fan-shaped legal landing zone, roughly 34.92 degrees wide, extending out from a throwing circle or the javelin runway. An implement must land inside these lines to count; landing on or outside a line voids the mark. Dangerous implements like the discus and hammer have safety cages specifically designed to constrain the release direction within this angle. Distance is measured from the center of the circle to the nearest mark the implement leaves.

Triple jump Triple jump

An event that strings together three consecutive jumps — a hop, a step, and a jump — for distance. The athlete lands first on the take-off foot, then the opposite foot, then finally with both feet into the sand. An incorrect sequence voids the attempt, and the result comes down to how little approach speed is lost across the three landing impacts. Because those impacts are severe, it's rated among the highest-injury-risk events in athletics.

Wavelight Wavelight

A strip of LED lights installed along the inside curb of the track that runs a light at a target record pace, letting both the athlete and spectators see the pace visually. Adopted widely since 2020, it has become standard equipment for distance record attempts, helping a runner hold target pace even after pacemakers have dropped out. It has also revived an old debate about what counts as a pure performance versus one assisted by technology.

Wind assistance limit Wind assistance limit

The tailwind limit for record recognition in track events of 200m and under, plus the long jump and triple jump, set at 2.0 metres per second. Exceeding it doesn't affect placing or the win, but the mark is not recognized as a record and is marked with a 'w' on the results sheet. Combined events allow up to 4.0 m/s in an individual event as long as the average across all wind-affected events stays within 2.0 m/s. An anemometer is placed beside the track near the finish and measures for a set duration specific to each event.

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