Athletics abbreviations

Last updated

The sports under the umbrella of athletics, particularly track and field, use a variety of statistics. In order to report that information efficiently, numerous abbreviations have grown to be common in the sport. Starting in 1948 by Bert Nelson and Cordner Nelson, Track & Field News became the leader in creating and defining abbreviations in this field. These abbreviations have also been adopted by, among others, World Athletics; the world governing body, various domestic governing bodies, the Association of Track and Field Statisticians, the Association of Road Racing Statisticians, the Associated Press, and the individual media outlets who receive their reports. These abbreviations also appear in Wikipedia.

Contents

Times and marks

Almost all races record a time. Evolving since experiments in the 1930s, to their official use at the 1968 Summer Olympics and official acceptance in 1977, fully automatic times have become common. As this evolution has occurred, the rare early times were specified as FAT times. As they are now commonplace, automatic times are now expressed using the hundredths of a second. Hand times (watches operated by human beings) are not regarded as accurate and thus are only accepted to the accuracy of a tenth of a second even when the watch displays greater accuracy. If the mark was set before 1977, a converted time to the tenth was recorded for record purposes, because they did not have a system to compare between the timing methods. Frequently in those cases there is a mark to the 100th retained for that race. Over this period of evolution, some reports show hand times also followed with an "h" or "ht" to distinguish hand times.

With two different timing methods came the inevitable desire to compare times. Track and Field News initiated adding .24 to hand times as a conversion factor. Many electronic hand stopwatches display times to the hundredth. Frequently those readings are recorded, but are not accepted as valid (leading to confused results). Some low level meets have even hand timed runners and have switched places according to the time displayed on the stopwatch. All of this is, of course, wrong. Hand times are not accurate enough to be accepted for record purposes for short races. Human reaction time is not perfectly identical between different human beings. Hand times involve human beings reacting, pushing the stopwatch button when they see the smoke or hear the sound of the starting pistol, then reacting (possibly anticipating) the runner crossing the finish line. The proper procedure for converting hand times would be to round any hundredths up to the next higher even tenth of a second and then add the .24 to get a time for comparison purposes only. [1] But many meets displayed the converted marks accurate to the hundredth making the results look like they were taken with fully automatic timing. In these cases, some meets have displayed a 4 or a 0 in the hundredths column for all races. When detected, reports of these times are followed by a "c" or ' to indicate converted times.

Road race times are only considered accurate to a full second. To distinguish a full second time with hours, from a minute time with hundredths of a second, colons are used to separate hours from minutes, and minutes from seconds. A period is used to separate seconds from hundredths of a second.

Transponder timing is becoming more common. The RFID detection system times the transponder chip, usually located on a runner's shoe as opposed to the official timing of the torso. Accurate to a full second, this is not significant, but in breaking microscopic ties, the data does not correspond to timing rules. Most road races cannot fit all participants onto the start line. Depending on the size of the field, some athletes could be several city blocks away from the start line and in the large crowd, could take minutes to get across the line. Results frequently indicate two times, the "gun time" would be the official time from the firing of the starting pistol, but the mat time shows the time the shoe crossed a sensing mat at the start line to the time the shoe crossed the sensing mat at the finish line.

Occasionally, when breaking ties using photo finish, times are displayed to the thousandth of a second. These times to the thousandth are not used for record purposes but times to the thousandth can be used to break ties between adjacent heats. Rules specify if a tie is broken this way, that all heats involved are recorded with the same timing system.

Records

Most records are subject to ratification by the governing body for that record. On the world level, that is World Athletics. Each body has their own procedure for ratifying the records: for example, USA Track & Field (USATF), the governing body for the United States, only ratifies records once a year at their annual meeting at the beginning of December.

Until a record is ratified, it is regarded as "Pending" which is sometimes indicated by a following P.

When a U20 is added, it indicates an under-20 record, which indicates an athlete under 20 years of age before the end of the calendar year of the competition. If no age-specific infix is added, the athlete is considered senior.

Bests

Some records are ratified or tracked, but they are not to the same standard of quality or accuracy as a record. The term is "bests." World Athletics lists bests for the Youth division and for road-racing records such as the marathon. It also tracks athlete personal achievements as bests. A Y indicates Youth. A youth athlete has not reached or will not reach their 18th birthday in the calendar year of competition.

When U18 or Y (for Youth) is added, it indicates an under-18 record, for athletes under 18 years of age at the end of the calendar year of the competition.

Sometimes, U23 is added to indicate under-23 records, for athletes under 23 years of age at the end of the calendar year of the competition.

Circumstances and conditions

For events where wind assistance is a factor (outdoor races 200 metres or less, long jump and triple jump), the wind reading is usually reported in metres per second (m/s).

Field events

Disqualifications

Athlete disqualifications often reference the IAAF rule number under which the athlete was disqualified.

This is typically written in the format (false start as example): DQ R162.7. [3]

Initialisms

Organising bodies

The various organizing bodies of the sport are abbreviated into alphabet soup.

Publications and statisticians

Events

Due to the large number of athletics events that are regularly contested, presentations of results and statistics often use abbreviations to refer to the events, rather than the full form.

Competitions

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sport of athletics</span> Group of sporting events

Athletics is a group of sporting events that involves competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking. The most common types of athletics competitions are track and field, road running, cross-country running, and racewalking.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Decathlon</span> Athletic track and field competition consisting of ten events

The decathlon is a combined event in athletics consisting of 10 track and field events. The word "decathlon" was formed, in analogy to the word "pentathlon", from Greek δέκα and ἄθλος. Events are held over two consecutive days and the winners are determined by the combined performance in all. Performance is judged on a points system in each event, not by the position achieved. The decathlon is contested mainly by male athletes, while female athletes typically compete in the heptathlon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carl Lewis</span> American track and field athlete

Frederick Carlton Lewis is an American former track and field athlete who won nine Olympic gold medals, one Olympic silver medal, and 10 World Championships medals, including eight gold. His career spanned from 1979 to 1996, when he last won an Olympic event. He is one of only six Olympic athletes who won a gold medal in the same individual event in four consecutive Olympic Games.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Track and field</span> Sport involving running, jumping, and throwing disciplines

Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping events. Track and field is categorized under the umbrella sport of athletics, which also includes road running, cross country running and racewalking. In British English the term "Athletics" is synonymous with American "Track and Field" and includes all jumping events.

The World Athletics Championships are a biennial athletics competition organized by World Athletics. Alongside the Olympic Games, they represent the highest level championships of senior international outdoor athletics competition for track and field athletics globally, including marathon running and race walking. Separate World Championships are held by World Athletics for certain other outdoor events, including cross-country running and half-marathon, as well as indoor and age-group championships.

Tora Lian-Juin Harris is an American high jumper. He is a Princeton University engineer of Taiwanese and African-American descent. Harris is an Olympian, a four-time national champion and two-time bronze medalist in international competition. He represented Team USA twice in the IAAF World Championships in Athletics, three times in the IAAF World Indoor Championships in Athletics and has served as a representative once in the IAAF Continental Cup. He spent two years as the No. 1 ranked high jumper in the United States.

Slobodan Branković is a Serbian former track and field athlete who specialised in the 400 metres. He is currently the general secretary of the Athletics Federation of Serbia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dafne Schippers</span> Dutch track and field athlete

Dafne Schippers is a Dutch retired track and field athlete who competed in sprinting and the combined events. She holds the European record in the 200 metres with a time of 21.63 seconds, making her the sixth-fastest woman of all time at this distance. She also holds the Dutch records in the 100 metres and long jump, and shares the Dutch records in the 60 metres indoor and 4 × 100 metres relay.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christian Taylor (athlete)</span> American track and field athlete

Christian Taylor is an American track and field athlete who competes in the triple jump and has a personal record of 18.21 m, which ranks 2nd on the all-time list.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2009 CARIFTA Games</span> International athletics championship event

The 38th CARIFTA Games was held in the George Odlum National Stadium in Vieux Fort, Saint Lucia, on April 10–13, 2009. Detailed reports on the results were given.

In India, the sport of athletics was introduced during the period of the British Raj. The sport is governed at national level by the Athletics Federation of India, which was formed in 1946. Despite its large population, few Indian athletes have won a medal in a global or major championship. This began to change in the 21st century, when Indians started taking greater interest in athletics more generally and improved facilities for the sport began to be built at a local level. At a continental level, it has been among the more successful Asian nations, though some distance behind China and Japan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yaroslava Mahuchikh</span> Ukrainian high jumper (born 2001)

Yaroslava Oleksiyivna Mahuchikh is a Ukrainian high jumper. She was the 2020 Summer Olympics bronze medalist, 2019 and 2022 World Championships silver medalist, 2023 World Championships gold medalist, 2022 World Indoor Championships gold medalist, and 2024 World Indoor Championships silver medalist.

In the course of its history, the sport of athletics (track and field) has undergone many changes. This article presents the changes to the rules of competition as well as to major events in the sport.

References

  1. ↑ "FAT vs Handheld Times". Gordie Richardson Oakland County 7th & 8th Grade Track Meet. Archived from the original on 1 April 2018. Retrieved 1 April 2018.
  2. ↑ "What does ND abbreviation stand for in athletics results". Sports Stack Exchange.
  3. ↑ Butler, Mark et al. (2013). IAAF Statistics Book Moscow 2013 (archived), p. 71. IAAF. Retrieved on 2015-07-06.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.