Sport of athletics in the context of "Running"

An athlete is most commonly a person who competes in one or more sports involving physical strength, speed, power, or endurance. Sometimes, the word "athlete" is used to refer specifically to sport of athletics competitors, i.e. including track and field and marathon runners but excluding e.g. swimmers, footballers or basketball players. However, in other contexts (mainly in the United States) it is used to refer to all athletics (physical culture) participants of any sport. For the latter definition, the word sportsperson or the gendered sportsman or sportswoman are also used. A third definition is also sometimes used, meaning anyone who is physically fit regardless of whether they compete in a sport.

Athletes may be professionals or amateurs. Most professional athletes have particularly well-developed physiques obtained by extensive physical training and strict exercise, accompanied by a strict dietary regimen.

Demosioi or Demosii (Ancient Greek: δημόσιοι, singular Demosios) generally referred to a class of public slaves in the system of slavery in ancient Greece at Athens, who were bought and owned by the state itself. They may in some cases have been privately owned slaves leased to the state. Their legal status in the Athenian state was complicated.

Demosios was a word that meant "public" or "of the state", but when used in the plural generally referred to this social class of public slaves. However the word had other applications. Some priesthoods were referred to as demosioi, presumably not because they were slaves, but on account of some state relationship. The word could also be used -- as in the phrase demosioi aethloi -- to refer to the various athletic games sponsored by the state.

A sports governing body is a sports organization that has a regulatory or sanctioning function.

Sports governing bodies come in various forms and have a variety of regulatory functions, including disciplinary procedure for rule infractions and deciding on rulechanges in the sport that they govern. Governing bodies have different scopes. They may cover a range of sport at an internationally acceptable level, such as the International Olympic Committee and the International Paralympic Committee, or only a single sport at a national level, such as the Rugby Football League. National bodies will largely have to be affiliated with international bodies for the same sport. The first international federations were formed at the end of the 19th century.

Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name used in North America is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping events. Track and field is categorized under the umbrella sport of athletics, which also includes road running, cross country running and race walking. Though the sense of "athletics" as a broader sport is not used in American English, outside of the United States the term athletics can either be used to mean just its track and field component or the entirety of the sport (adding road racing and cross country) based on context.

The foot racing events, which include sprints, middle- and long-distance events, race walking, and hurdling, are won by the athlete who completes it in the least time. The jumping and throwing events are won by those who achieve the greatest distance or height. Regular jumping events include long jump, triple jump, high jump, and pole vault, while the most common throwing events are shot put, javelin, discus, and hammer. There are also "combined events" or "multi events", such as the pentathlon consisting of five events, heptathlon consisting of seven events, and decathlon consisting of ten events. In these, athletes participate in a combination of track and field events. Most track and field events are individual sports with a single victor; the most prominent team events are relay races, which typically feature teams of four. Events are almost exclusively divided by gender, although both the men's and women's competitions are usually held at the same venue. One exception are mixed relays, in which two men and two women make up the four-person team. If a race has too many people to run all at once, preliminary heats will be run to narrow down the field of participants.

Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero-sum game). Competition can arise between entities such as organisms, individuals, economic and social groups, etc. The rivalry can be over attainment of any exclusive goal, including recognition.

Competition occurs in nature, between living organisms which co-exist in the same environment. Animals compete over water supplies, food, mates, and other biological resources. Humans usually compete for food and mates, though when these needs are met deep rivalries often arise over the pursuit of wealth, power, prestige, and fame when in a static, repetitive, or unchanging environment. Competition is a major tenet of market economies and business, often associated with business competition as companies are in competition with at least one other firm over the same group of customers. Competition inside a company is usually stimulated with the larger purpose of meeting and reaching higher quality of services or improved products that the company may produce or develop.

India first participated at the Olympic Games in 1900, becoming the first Asian nation to do so. Norman Pritchard represented the country and won two medals, both silver, in athletics. The nation first sent a team to the Summer Olympic Games in 1920 and has participated in every Summer Games since then. India has competed at several Winter Olympic Games after its debut in 1964.

Indian athletes have won 41 medals, all at the Summer Games. At a period of time during the 1900s, the Indian men's field hockey team was dominant in the Olympic Games, winning eleven medals in twelve Olympics between 1928 and 1980 including eight gold medals of which six were won consecutively from 1928 to 1956. India's best performance happened at the 2020 Games, with seven medals including a gold and two silver.

Athletics has been contested at every Summer Olympics since the birth of the modern Olympic movement at the 1896 Summer Olympics. The athletics program traces its earliest roots to events used in the ancient Greek Olympics. The modern program includes track and field events, road running events, and race walking events. Cross country running was also on the program in earlier editions but it was dropped after the 1924 Summer Olympics.

Race walking, or racewalking, is a long-distance discipline within the sport of athletics. Although a foot race, it is different from running in that one foot must appear to be in contact with the ground at all times. Race judges carefully assess that this is maintained throughout the race. Races are typically held on either roads or running tracks. Common distances range from 3,000 metres (1.9 mi) up to 100 kilometres (62.1 mi).

The current race walking contests at the Summer Olympics are the 20 kilometres race walk (men and women) and the marathon race walk mixed relay, the latter of which debuted at the 2024 Summer Olympics. The 50 kilometres race walk (men only) was discontinued after the 2020 Summer Olympics. The biennial World Athletics Championships also features both 20 and 50 kilometer events, the 50 km walk for women being contested until 2019. The 50 km race walk was replaced by the 35 kilometres race walk as standard championship discipline in 2022. The IAAF World Race Walking Cup, first held in 1961, is a stand-alone global competition for the discipline and it has 10 kilometres race walks for junior athletes, in addition to the Olympic-standard events. The IAAF World Indoor Championships featured 5000 m and 3000 m race walk variations, but these were discontinued after 1993. Top-level athletics championships and games typically feature 20 km racewalking events.