Athletics

The School Games has a rich history in athletics having seen a number of world-class athletes pass through its competitions, including Paralympic gold medallists Jonnie Peacock and Hannah Cockroft, as well as Olympians Katarina Johnson-Thompson, Dina Asher-Smith, and Adam Gemili, just to name a few. There's every chance you could be seeing the next rising star at Loughborough University this summer! 

Athletics has been a cornerstone of the Olympic Games since its inaugural edition in 1896. It has also been in every Paralympic Games since the disability competition was introduced in 1960. Team GB have won 201 Olympic athletics medals, more than twice as many as in any other sport, with 55 of those medals being gold. Only the United States, with 801, have won more Olympic athletics medals than Team GB. 

Did You Know? 

• When Great Britain’s Jonathan Edwards set the current Triple Jump world record of 18.29m to win at the 1995 IAAF World Championships, he jumped a distance in excess of the width of a football penalty box. 
• A version of the modern form of Shot Put can be traced to the Highland Games in Scotland during the 19th century where competitors threw a rounded cube, stone, or metal weight from behind a line. 
• One of the original events at the Ancient Olympics was the ‘diaulos’, a race around two marks on a course roughly equivalent to the current 400m.