S T N E V E K C A R T The Summer Olympic Games are held every four years and showcase the fastest strongest and most skilled sportspeople on the planet The world’s swiftest runners compete in the track events held in and around the Olympic Stadium The fastest races the 100 meters m 200 m and 400 m are called sprints They are over in just a few exciting seconds The runners start from blocks and must stay in eight numbered lanes marked on the track Sensors are installed in the starting gun and the blocks and if they detect that a runner has started less than 0 1 seconds after the gun is fired it counts as a false start To win runners must get their torso the body between the head to waist across the line first Middle and Long-Distance Events The 800 m and 1,500 m are called middle-distance races The 5,000 m and 10,000 m are called long distance races The athletes begin a race spread across Jamaican record-breaker Usain Bolt prepares himself before the final of the Beijing 100 m sprint in 2008 6
In track relay events the athletes must get the baton handover technique perfect steeplechasers staggered lanes the ones in the outer lanes begin farther forward to compensate for the bends in the track Then after a certain distance all the competitors are allowed to bunch together in one lane The Olympic Stadium track is 400 m long so in the longer events the athletes run around again and again Hurdles Steeplechases and Relays Hurdlers Hurdlers and steeplechasers must jump hurdles as they race Some of the steeplechase hurdles have pools of water in front of them and landing in the water will slow down an athlete so the steeplechasers need to clear the hurdle as well as the pool Track relay events have four runners in a team Each one takes a turn running with a baton They must hand the baton over to the next athlete in a changeover box 20 m in length marked on the track but if they fumble the handover race will be lost Amazing Olympics In the Paralympics there are different track-event categories including wheelchair races and events for runners with amputated limbs or visual impairment OlympicFactsandStats All track races are run counterclockwise Each race can have one false start and then anyone who makes a false start after that is disqualified banned from the race The longest Olympic running race is the marathon at more than 26 miles 42 km It is run on roads outside the Olympic Stadium The longest Olympic track race of all is the 31-mile 50-km men’s walk 7
