History of track and field in India | Sports history Part 1

Introduction of history of track and field and historical review with special reference to India.

Games and sports are important parts of our lives. They are essential to enjoy overall health and well-being. Sports and games offer numerous advantages and are thus highly recommended for everyone irrespective of their age. Sports with individualistic approaches characterised by the graceful skills of players are individual sports. Do you like the idea of playing an individual sport and being responsible for your win or loss, success or failure? There are various sports that come under this category. This part of the blog helps you to enhance your knowledge about athletics, badminton, gymnastics, judo, swimming, table tennis, and wrestling.

Athletics

Running, jumping and throwing are natural and universal forms of human physical expression. Track and field events are the improved versions of all these. These are among the oldest of all sporting competitions. Athletics consist of track and field events. In the events, competitions of races of different distances are conducted. The different track and field event have their roots in ancient human history.

History

Ancient Olympic Games are the first recorded examples of organised track and field events. In 776 B.C. in Olympia, Greece, only one event was contested which is known as the stadion footrace. The scope of the games expanded in later years. Further, it included running competitions, but the introduction of the ancient Olympic pentathlon marked a step towards track and field as it is recognised today. There were five events in the pentathlon namely – discus throws long jump, javelin throw, the stadium foot race, and wrestling.

In the history of Indian Athletics, the decade of 1940s to 1950s is important as a number of athletics associations were started in this decade. In 1946, the Amateur Athletic Federation of India (AAFI) was established for the management of Indian athletics. The entire scenario of Indian Athletics was changed by AAFI as it worked in collaboration with the other Athletics associations to improve sports and Athletics. Indian Athletics went through many phases. Many track and field games were played on the grass.

At present synthetic track is used which has made things easier as there was no need for manual marking of tracks and associated definitions for throws and jumps in those tracks. The application of technology has helped the athletes and improved the status of the sport.

India has so far produced a number of successful athletes at the international level who have a rich tradition of winning performances in international tournaments.

Some of the most successful athletes in the early history of Indian Athletics are Mikha Singh, T.C. Yohannan, Gurbachan Singh, Sriram Singh, etc. Some of the notable Indian athletes in the contemporary period include P.T. Usha, Anju Bobby George, Jyotirmoyee Sikdar, Saraswati Saha, Soma Biswas, etc.

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