South Pacific Athletics Championships

South Pacific Athletics Championships
Status	defunct
Genre	Athletics championship
Inaugurated	1976
Most recent	1984
Area	South Pacific Ocean islands

Last updated October 13, 2019

The South Pacific Athletics Championships were an international athletics competition between island nations of the South Pacific Ocean. The championships was contested on three occasions: it was first held in 1976, had its second edition in 1978, then its final edition in 1984. Ten nations won medals at the competition during its lifetime.^[1] The competition emerged as a single-sport championship following in the footsteps of the region's multi-sport event established in 1963: the South Pacific Games.^[2] The athletics competition declined with the emergence of the South Pacific Mini Games in 1981, which was a smaller-scale event with athletics as its core sport.^[3]

Athletics is a collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking. The most common types of athletics competitions are track and field, road running, cross country running, and race walking.

The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south and is bounded by Asia and Australia in the west and the Americas in the east.

A multi-sport event is an organized sporting event, often held over multiple days, featuring competition in many different sports among organized teams of athletes from (mostly) nation-states. The first major, modern, multi-sport event of interna. Most have the same basic structure. Games are held over the course of several days in and around a "host city", which changes for each competition. Countries send national teams to each competition, consisting of individual athletes and teams that compete in a wide variety of sports. Athletes or teams are awarded gold, silver or bronze medals for first, second and third place respectively. The games are generally held every four years, though some are annual competitions.

Editions

Ed.	Year	City	Country	No. of events
1	1976	Nouméa	New Caledonia	37
2	1978	Pirae	French Polynesia	37
3	1984	Suva	Fiji	38

Events

The competition programme featured a total of 38 individual championship athletics events, 22 for men and 16 for women. For each of the sexes, there were six track running events, two obstacle events, three jumps, two throws, and one combined track and field event. The women's programme featured fewer events than the men's: women did not compete in distance events longer than 3000 m, and only men contested the steeplechase, pole vault, triple jump, and hammer throw. Men and women had a pentathlon in the first two editions, with this being replaced by a men's octathlon and women's heptathlon at the final edition. A women's 400 m hurdles was contested once only in 1984, as this event gained international acceptance during this period.^[1]

Track running

100 metres, 200 metres, 400 metres, 800 metres, 1500 metres, 3000 metres (women only), 5000 metres (men only), 10,000 metres (men only)

The 100 metres, or 100-metre dash, is a sprint race in track and field competitions. The shortest common outdoor running distance, it is one of the most popular and prestigious events in the sport of athletics. It has been contested at the Summer Olympics since 1896 for men and since 1928 for women.

The 200 metres is a sprint running event. On an outdoor race 400 m track, the race begins on the curve and ends on the home straight, so a combination of techniques are needed to successfully run the race. A slightly shorter race, called the stadion and run on a straight track, was the first recorded event at the ancient Olympic Games. The 200 m places more emphasis on speed endurance than shorter sprint distances as athletes predominantly rely on anaerobic energy system during the 200 m sprint. Similarly to other sprint distances, the 200 m begins from the starting blocks. When the sprinters adopt the 'set' position in the blocks they are able to adopt a more efficient starting posture and isometrically preload their muscles. This enables them to stride forwards more powerfully when the race begins and start faster.

The 400 metres, or 400 metre dash, is a sprinting event in track and field competitions. It has been featured in the athletics programme at the Summer Olympics since 1896 for men and since 1964 for women. On a standard outdoor running track, it is one lap around the track. Runners start in staggered positions and race in separate lanes for the entire course. In many countries, athletes previously competed in the 440 yard dash (402.336 m)—which is a quarter of a mile and was referred to as the 'quarter-mile'—instead of the 400 m (437.445 yards), though this distance is now obsolete.

Obstacle events

100 metres hurdles (women only), 110 metres hurdles (men only), 400 metres hurdles, 3000 metres steeplechase (men only)

The 100 metres hurdles, or 100-meter hurdles, is a track and field event run mainly by women. For the race, ten hurdles of a height of 83.8 centimetres (33.0 in) are placed along a straight course of 100 metres (109.36 yd). The first hurdle is placed after a run-up of 13 metres from the starting line. The next 9 hurdles are set at a distance of 8.5 metres from each other, and the home stretch from the last hurdle to the finish line is 10.5 metres long. The hurdles are set up so that they will fall over if bumped into by the runner, but weighted so this is disadvantageous. Fallen hurdles do not count against runners provided that they do not run into them on purpose. Like the 100 metres sprint, the 100 m hurdles begins with athletes in starting blocks.

The 110 metres hurdles, or 110-metre hurdles, is a hurdling track and field event for men. It is included in the athletics programme at the Summer Olympic Games. The female counterpart is the 100 metres hurdles. As part of a racing event, ten hurdles of 1.067 metres in height are evenly spaced along a straight course of 110 metres. They are positioned so that they will fall over if bumped into by the runner. Fallen hurdles do not carry a fixed time penalty for the runners, but they have a significant pull-over weight which slows down the run. Like the 100 metres sprint, the 110 metres hurdles begins in the starting blocks.

The 400 metres hurdles is a track and field hurdling event. The event has been on the Olympic athletics programme since 1900 for men and since 1984 for women.

Jumping events

Pole vault (men only), high jump, long jump, triple jump (men only)

Pole vaulting is a track and field event in which a person uses a long flexible pole as an aid to jump over a bar. Pole jumping competitions were known to the ancient Greeks, Cretans and Celts. It has been a full medal event at the Olympic Games since 1896 for men and since 2000 for women.

The high jump is a track and field event in which competitors must jump unaided over a horizontal bar placed at measured heights without dislodging it. In its modern most practiced format, a bar is placed between two standards with a crash mat for landing. In the modern era, athletes run towards the bar and use the Fosbury Flop method of jumping, leaping head first with their back to the bar. Since ancient times, competitors have introduced increasingly effective techniques to arrive at the current form.

The long jump is a track and field event in which athletes combine speed, strength and agility in an attempt to leap as far as possible from a take off point. Along with the triple jump, the two events that measure jumping for distance as a group are referred to as the "horizontal jumps". This event has a history in the Ancient Olympic Games and has been a modern Olympic event for men since the first Olympics in 1896 and for women since 1948.

Throwing events

Shot put, discus throw, javelin throw, hammer throw (men only)

The shot put is a track and field event involving "putting" a heavy spherical object—the shot—as far as possible. The shot put competition for men has been a part of the modern Olympics since their revival in 1896, and women's competition began in 1948.

The discus throw, also known as disc throw, is a track and field event in which an athlete throws a heavy disc—called a discus—in an attempt to mark a farther distance than their competitors. It is an ancient sport, as demonstrated by the fifth-century-BC Myron statue Discobolus. Although not part of the modern pentathlon, it was one of the events of the ancient Greek pentathlon, which can be dated back to at least to 708 BC, and is part of the modern decathlon.

The javelin throw is a track and field event where the javelin, a spear about 2.5 m in length, is thrown. The javelin thrower gains momentum by running within a predetermined area. Javelin throwing is an event of both the men's decathlon and the women's heptathlon.

Combined track and field events

Pentathlon, Octathlon (men only), Heptathlon (women only)

Relay

4 × 100 metres relay, 4 × 400 metres relay

Road running

Marathon (men only)

Participants

Fiji
French Polynesia
Nauru
New Caledonia
Papua New Guinea
Samoa
Solomon Islands
Tonga
Vanuatu (New Hebrides in first two editions)
Wallis and Futuna

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References

1 2 South Pacific Championships. GBR Athletics. Retrieved 2019-10-09.
↑ South Pacific Games. GBR Athletics. Retrieved 2019-10-09.
↑ South Pacific Mini Games. GBR Athletics. Retrieved 2019-10-09.

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[GBR-1] 1 2 South Pacific Championships. GBR Athletics. Retrieved 2019-10-09.

[2] South Pacific Games. GBR Athletics. Retrieved 2019-10-09.

[3] South Pacific Mini Games. GBR Athletics. Retrieved 2019-10-09.