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Mar 13, 2024 · Mar 13, 2024. 102. NEW YORK — After Carmela Schneider gave birth to her son Marek, she hopped in her mother’s Volkswagen. They made the 90-minute drive from the Prince Albert, Saskatchewan,...
Jan 26, 1999 · Blue Jays rookie Davis Schneider relishing the moment during postseason push. From not being invited to MLB spring training to a record-breaking start to his career, Schneider’s 2023 has been a ...
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athletics, a variety of competitions in running, walking, jumping, and throwing events. Although these contests are called track and field (or simply track) in the United States, they are generally designated as athletics elsewhere. This article covers the history, the organization, and the administration of the sports, the conduct of competitions, the rules and techniques of the individual events, and some of the sports’ most prominent athletes.
Track-and-field athletics are the oldest forms of organized sport, having developed out of the most basic human activities—running, walking, jumping, and throwing. Athletics have become the most truly international of sports, with nearly every country in the world engaging in some form of competition. Most nations send teams of men and women to the quadrennial Olympic Games and to the official World Championships of track and field. There also are several continental and intercontinental championship meets held, including the European, Commonwealth, African, Pan-American, and Asian.
Within the broad title of athletics come as many as two dozen distinct events. These events, generally held outdoors, make up a meet. The outdoor running events are held on a 400-metre or 440-yard oval track, and field events (jumping and throwing) are held either inside the track’s perimeter or in adjacent areas.
In many parts of the world, notably the United States, Canada, and Europe, the sport moves indoors during the winter; because of limited space, some events are modified and several are eliminated altogether.
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There is little in the way of definitive records of athletics’ early days as organized sport. Egyptian and Asian civilizations are known to have encouraged athletics many centuries before the Christian era. Perhaps as early as 1829 bc, Ireland was the scene of the Lugnasad festival’s Tailteann Games, involving various forms of track-and-field activity. The Olympic Games of Greece, traditionally dated from 776 bc, continued through 11 centuries before ending about ad 393. These ancient Olympics were strictly male affairs, as to both participants and spectators. Greek women were reputed to have formed their own Heraea Games, which, like the Olympics, were held every four years.
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Athletics as practiced today was born and grew to maturity in England. The first mention of the sport in England was recorded in 1154, when practice fields were first established in London. The sport was banned by King Edward III in the 1300s but revived a century later by Henry VIII, reputed to be an accomplished hammer thrower.
The development of the modern sport, however, has come only since the early 19th century. Organized amateur footraces were held in England as early as 1825, but it was from 1860 that athletics enjoyed its biggest surge to that date. In 1861 the West London Rowing Club organized the first meet open to all amateurs, and in 1866 the Amateur Athletic Club (AAC) was founded and conducted the first English championships. The emphasis in all these meets was on competition for “gentlemen amateurs” who received no financial compensation. In 1880 the AAC yielded governing power to the Amateur Athletic Association (AAA).
The first meet in North America was held near Toronto in 1839, but it was the New York Athletic Club, formed in the 1860s, that placed the sport on a solid footing in the United States. The club held the world’s first indoor meet and helped promote the formation in 1879 of the National Association of Amateur Athletes of America (NAAAA) to conduct national championships. Nine years later the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) took over as national governing body, amid reports that the NAAAA was lax in enforcing amateurism.
Athletics was well established in many countries by the late 1800s, but not until the revival of the Olympic Games in 1896 did the sport become truly international. Although begun modestly, the Olympics provided the inspiration and standardizing influence that was to spread interest in athletics worldwide. In 1912 the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) was founded, and by the time that organization celebrated its 75th anniversary in 1987 it had more than 170 national members. Its rules applied only to men’s competition until 1936, when the IAAF also became the governing body of women’s athletics.
Major international competitions before World War II included the Olympics, the British Empire Games, and the European Championships, but after the war athletics experienced its greatest period of growth, taking root especially in the developing countries. By the 1950s world-class athletes from African, Asian, and Latin American nations were enjoying great success at international meets.
- Bert Nelson
Feb 18, 2024 · Feb 18, 2024. 60. DUNEDIN, Fla. — After experiencing a year of firsts in the major leagues last season — his first game, his first at-bat, his first home run — Davis Schneider is experiencing...
Apr 3, 2024 · 48. HOUSTON — The Toronto Blue Jays were down to their final out on a night their offence had trouble generating anything against Houston Astros starter Framber Valdez when Davis Schneider walked...
Athletic Scheider was born in November 1932 in Orange, New Jersey, to Anna (Crosson) and Roy Bernhard Scheider, a mechanic. He was of German and Irish descent. A keen sportsman from a young age, he competed in baseball and boxing (his awkwardly mended broken nose is a result of his foray into Golden Gloves competitions).
Oct 30, 2023 · Oct 30, 2023. 8. PHOENIX — Long before Max Scherzer was a future Hall of Famer, 14 years before he was slated to start Game 3 of the World Series for the Texas Rangers, he was a young pitcher...
