Stage 1What Athletics Is, and How to Use This Guide

Athletics is running, walking, jumping and throwing, measured against a clock, a tape or other people, and usually all three at once. It needs less equipment than almost any other sport. A child with bare feet and a patch of level ground is doing it, and so is an Olympic finalist; the difference is the measuring.

Few sports have a longer written history. The ancient Olympic Games, traditionally dated to 776 BCE, are said to have begun with a single footrace, the stadion, run over roughly the length of the stadium. The modern sport took shape in nineteenth-century Britain and America, joined the revived Olympic Games in 1896, and has been governed worldwide since 1912 by the body now called World Athletics. It was founded as the International Amateur Athletic Federation, later became the International Association of Athletics Federations while keeping the initials IAAF, and took its present name in 2019. Beneath it sit area associations, such as the Asian Athletics Association, and national federations. India's is the Athletics Federation of India (see Stage 20).

The branches of the sport

The word covers more than most people expect.

• Track events: sprints, hurdles, relays, middle and long distance, and the steeplechase (Stages 2 and 3).
• Field events: the jumps (long jump, triple jump, high jump, pole vault) and the throws (shot put, discus, hammer, javelin) (Stages 4 and 5).
• Combined events: the decathlon and heptathlon, where one athlete does many events and scores points (Stage 6).
• Race walking, on road and track, with its own rules of technique (Stage 6).
• Road running, from 5 km to the marathon and beyond, and cross-country, over grass, mud and hills (Stage 7).
• Mountain and trail running, which also sits under World Athletics but is touched on only lightly here.

Para athletics, for athletes with physical, visual or intellectual impairments, runs alongside all of these with its own classification system, and India's para athletes appear in Part II.

What makes athletics different

First, the result is objective. A time of 12.4 seconds is 12.4 seconds whoever is watching, which makes improvement visible and arguments short. Second, you compete against yourself as much as against a field. A personal best, the fastest time or longest mark you have ever done, belongs to you whether you finished first or fortieth. Third, it lasts: there are age-group championships for athletes past ninety. The same objectivity tempts some people to cheat, which Stage 14 covers.

How to use this guide

The guide is written for four readers: someone who has never run a timed lap, a school or club athlete who trains regularly, a coach or serious competitor who wants the specifics, and the general reader who likes a good story. The main text serves the first and last of those. Boxes marked First Steps say what a beginner can do this week, boxes marked For the Athlete carry numbers, rules and specifications, and Sidebars tell stories.

Part I covers the sport anywhere in the world, and ends with a band of two stages on storing and preserving an athlete's kit and records (Stages 15 and 16). Part II is the Indian story. The reference section holds a glossary, further reading and the sourcing sheet for the pictures.

Stage 2Sprints, Hurdles and Relays

The sprints

The sprints are the 100 m, 200 m and 400 m outdoors, with the 60 m added indoors. Every sprinter stays in an assigned lane, 1.22 metres wide on a standard track, and the starts of the 200 m and 400 m are staggered so that athletes in the outside lanes cover exactly the same distance as those inside.

Sprints start from starting blocks, adjustable footplates fixed to the track, on the commands "On your marks" and "Set", followed by the gun. Since 2010 a single false start disqualifies the athlete responsible. At major meets, sensors in the blocks treat a reaction faster than a tenth of a second as a false start, on the reasoning that no human can genuinely react that quickly.

Coaches divide a sprint into phases:

1. The start and drive: pushing out of the blocks, leaning forward, with short, powerful steps.
2. Acceleration: rising gradually to an upright position over the first twenty or thirty metres.
3. Maximum velocity: the fastest part of the race, reached somewhere past halfway in a 100 m.
4. Speed maintenance: everyone slows at the end, and the winner is usually the athlete who slows least.

The 400 m is run close to flat out, and its last hundred metres test how much speed survives fatigue.

Technique fundamentals

Good sprinting looks relaxed, which is the hardest thing about it. The torso stays tall, the face and shoulders loose, and the arms drive forwards and back from the shoulder rather than across the body. Each foot lands close to under the hips rather than reaching out in front, which acts as a brake. Tension, especially a clenched jaw and raised shoulders, is the commonest fault in young sprinters and the slowest to cure.

The hurdles

Hurdles are sprints with ten barriers. Women run the 100 m hurdles, men the 110 m hurdles, and both the 400 m hurdles. The skill is to go over, not up. The hurdler attacks the barrier knee-first with the lead leg, snaps it down beyond, and brings the trail leg round to the side with the knee high. Trained athletes take three strides between barriers in the short hurdles. In the 400 m hurdles stride patterns vary and often change as fatigue builds, which rewards athletes who can lead with either leg. Knocking a hurdle over is not in itself a foul; trailing a leg round the outside of it, or knocking it down deliberately, is. Beginners learn over low foam training hurdles, which remove most of the fear and nearly all of the bruises.

The relays

The standard relays are the 4 × 100 m and the 4 × 400 m, with a mixed 4 × 400 m added to the Olympic programme at the Tokyo Games. The baton must change hands within a marked takeover zone, and what counts is the position of the baton, not the runners' feet.

In the 4 × 100 m the zone is 30 metres long. The outgoing runner sets off as the incoming runner reaches a check mark measured out in practice, puts a hand back on a call, and receives the baton with an upsweep or a downsweep without looking back. A well-drilled quartet regularly beats four faster sprinters who have not practised together. The 4 × 400 m uses a 20-metre zone and a visual pass, because the incoming runner is tired and slowing. Its first leg runs entirely in lanes, and the second runner breaks for the inside after the first bend.

Stage 3Middle Distance, Long Distance and the Steeplechase

The distances

Middle distance means the 800 m and 1500 m, with the mile as the one imperial distance that still carries official world records. Long distance on the track means the 5000 m and 10,000 m. In the 800 m athletes run the first bend in lanes, then may cut in after a marked break line. Longer races start from a curved line and bunch at once. Every metre run wide on a bend is extra distance, which is why middle-distance racing is so much about position.

How the races are run

In a paced race, common on the professional circuit, a pacemaker leads at a set speed and athletes chase a time. In a championship race there are no pacemakers, and many 1500 m finals are slow for three laps and brutal for one. For time, coaches broadly agree that an even pace, or a slightly faster second half, beats a fast start. Beginners almost always start too fast.

The longer the race, the more of its energy comes from aerobic metabolism, which uses oxygen. The 800 m draws heavily on both aerobic and anaerobic energy, which is why its last hundred metres look so painful.

Technique fundamentals

Distance technique is less about a correct shape than about removing waste. Stay tall, keep the arms and hands relaxed, and avoid overstriding, which means landing with the foot far out in front of the body. The popular figure of 180 steps a minute began as an observation of elite runners at race pace, not a law. A modest rise in step rate can help a runner who overstrides, but changes to form are best made slowly.

The steeplechase

The 3000 m steeplechase has 28 barriers and 7 water jumps. The barriers are heavy and do not fall, so athletes may step on them, and at the water jump most do, pushing off the rail to land in the shallow end of the sloping pit. A fall on a solid barrier late in a race is serious, and the event demands both endurance and a hurdler's nerve.

Stage 4The Jumps

The horizontal jumps, long jump and triple jump, are measured along the ground. The vertical jumps, high jump and pole vault, are measured by the height of a bar.

Long jump and triple jump

Both use a runway and a sand-filled pit. The edge of the take-off board nearest the pit is the take-off line, and any part of the take-off foot that breaks its plane is a foul. The jump is measured from the line to the nearest mark in the sand made by any part of the body, so a jumper who sits back on landing gives away distance already earned.

A long jump has four phases: the approach, a run-up that an experienced jumper counts to the stride; the take-off, where speed is converted into lift; the flight, using a hang, sail or hitch-kick technique to hold a good position; and the landing, with the legs thrown forward and the body folding past the feet.

The triple jump is a hop, a step and a jump. The athlete takes off and lands on the same foot, lands on the other foot, then jumps into the pit. The forces through the take-off leg are very large. Young athletes should build into it over seasons, and anyone with knee, shin or back pain during bounding should stop and have it checked.

High jump

The high jumper must take off from one foot, and almost every senior jumper now uses the Fosbury Flop: a curved approach and a back-first clearance. Heights may be passed, but three consecutive failures eliminate. Ties go to the jumper with fewer failures at the last height cleared, then to the one with fewer failures overall.

Pole vault

The vaulter sprints down the runway carrying a pole of fibreglass or carbon fibre, plants its tip in a sunken box, and uses the bending and straightening pole to swing up, invert and clear the bar. It is the most technical event in athletics and the one where a beginner can be seriously hurt. Never use a pole rated below your body weight, and learn only under a qualified coach, on a proper runway, with full-sized landing mats that cover the box area.

Standing long jumps, low skipping and hopping games on grass build the elasticity the jumps depend on. Jump training is high-impact, so keep it on grass or a sprung track, in small amounts, with full rest between efforts.

Stage 5The Throws

There are four throws: the shot put, the discus, the hammer and the javelin. The first three are thrown from a circle, the javelin from a runway ending in a curved arc. The implement must land inside a marked sector. In the circle events the thrower must not touch the top of the rim or the ground outside it, and must leave from the back half of the circle once the implement has landed. The throw is measured from the nearest mark the implement made back to the inside edge of the circle or arc.

Shot put

The shot is pushed, not thrown. It starts tucked against the neck and must be put from the shoulder with one hand, without being brought behind the line of the shoulders. In the glide the athlete travels backwards across the circle in a straight line; in the rotational technique, borrowed from the discus, the athlete spins. A curved stop board marks the front of the circle.

Discus

The discus is thrown from a slightly larger circle inside a protective cage, after about one and a half turns, and released off the index finger so that it spins. Because a discus flies like a wing, a moderate headwind from the right angle can add distance.

Hammer

The hammer is a metal ball on a steel wire with a handle. The thrower swings it round the head, then makes three or four accelerating turns before release, inside a cage with movable gates, because a hammer that leaves the sector is the most dangerous object in a stadium.

Javelin

The javelin thrower runs with the implement at about head height, turns side-on with crossover strides, plants the front leg, and whips the arm through over the shoulder. The javelin must be held at its grip, its metal head must strike the ground before any other part, and the athlete may not turn their back to the arc before release. Elbow and shoulder injuries are common where technique is poor or throwing volume rises too quickly.

Technique fundamentals

Every throw is a chain that starts at the ground: legs, hips, trunk, shoulder, arm, hand. Beginners throw with the arm. Good throwers let the hips lead and the arm arrive last and fastest, while the front side of the body blocks, stopping firmly so that momentum passes into the implement.

Safety is part of the event

Officials, coaches and athletes have been killed by thrown implements. Every throwing session, however casual, runs on the same rules.

• Throw only when the sector is clear, and only on the coach's or official's signal.
• Never stand in, walk across or turn your back to a throwing sector.
• Retrieve implements together, only when everyone has finished throwing.
• Carry a javelin upright with the tip down, and walk. Never throw an implement back towards the circle.
• Use the cage for discus and hammer, and check the hammer's wire, handle and swivel before each session (see Stage 15).

Beginners without a coach should start with medicine-ball throws against a solid wall, and should never practise with real hammers or javelins alone or in any space shared with the public.

Stage 6Combined Events and Race Walking

The decathlon and heptathlon

Men's outdoor combined event is the decathlon, ten events over two consecutive days. Women's is the heptathlon, seven events over two days. Indoors, men contest a heptathlon and women a pentathlon. Each performance is converted into points using official scoring tables, and a mark worth around 1,000 points in an event is a strong international performance. Missing an event means abandoning the competition, and three fouls in the long jump or no height cleared in the pole vault leave a zero that is almost impossible to recover from.

Combined events suit athletes who like variety and recover well from a bad hour. They also suit young athletes. Many coaching systems advise against specialising too early, because broad movement skills protect against overuse injury, and nobody can tell at twelve which event a body will suit at twenty.

Race walking

Race walking has one defining rule. The walker must stay in contact with the ground so that no loss of contact is visible to the human eye, and the advancing leg must be straightened from the moment of first contact until it passes under the body. This gives race walkers their rolling hips and rapid, short steps.

Judges round the course may show a yellow paddle as a warning and send a red card to the chief judge for a clear breach. Enough red cards from different judges lead to a time penalty or disqualification. The exact procedure, including penalty zones where athletes wait out a fixed time, has changed in recent years, so read the current rules for your competition.

The Olympic individual distance is 20 km. The 50 km walk was dropped after the Tokyo Games, the World Championships have since held a 35 km event, and the Paris Games in 2024 added a mixed relay over the marathon distance. The muscles along the front of the shin work hard in walking, and new walkers often feel them first, so build distance gradually.

Stage 7Road Running and Cross-Country

Road running

Road races run from 5 km to the marathon and beyond. The common distances are 5 km, 10 km, 15 km, 10 miles, the half marathon of 21.0975 km and the marathon of 42.195 km, a figure that comes from the course of the 1908 London Olympic Games. Anything longer is an ultramarathon. Serious courses are measured by riding a bicycle fitted with a calibrated counter along the shortest route a runner could legally take.

Mass races have start waves by expected finish time, pacers carrying flags for target times, drinks stations, cut-off times and medical teams along the route. The classic marathon mistakes are starting too fast, trying new shoes, food or gels on race day, and building the long run too quickly in training. Nothing on race day should be new.

Heart problems during races are rare, but they happen, more often in people with undiagnosed heart disease. Stop and get medical help at once for chest pain or tightness, breathlessness out of proportion to the effort, a racing or irregular heartbeat, dizziness or fainting. Do not race with a fever or soon after an illness. Learning basic life support, including CPR, is a gift to every race you enter.

Cross-country

Cross-country is racing over natural terrain: grass, mud, sand and hills. Distances vary with age group and event, from a few kilometres for young athletes to around ten for seniors. It is traditionally a team sport: each team's scoring runners add their finishing places together and the lowest total wins, so the fifth runner matters as much as the first. Spikes are allowed, with longer pins for mud. Coaches value it for building strength and resilience in distance runners. Mountain and trail running, also governed by World Athletics, take the same idea further uphill.

Stage 8How Training Works: Overload, Specificity and Periodisation

Stress, recovery, adaptation

Training works because the body adapts to what it is asked to do, provided it has time to recover. A hard session creates fatigue and small amounts of damage, and the adaptation comes in the recovery that follows. Train again too soon and fatigue accumulates; wait too long and the stimulus fades. Most of the art of coaching is managing that balance for one particular person.

The principles

• Progressive overload. To keep improving, training load must gradually increase: further, faster, more often, or with shorter recoveries. The key word is gradually.
• Specificity. The body adapts to the demands placed on it. A sprinter needs fast running, a marathon runner long running, a javelin thrower throwing.
• Individuality. Two athletes on the same programme respond differently, because of age, history, sleep, stress, diet and genetics.
• Reversibility. Fitness built over months declines over weeks of inactivity.
• Variation. Changing sessions and emphasis prevents staleness and spreads stress across different tissues.

The popular rule that weekly mileage should never rise by more than ten per cent is a rule of thumb rather than an established finding. The better-supported point is that sudden large jumps in training, especially after a break, illness or injury, are when many injuries happen.

Measuring intensity

On an easy run you can talk in full sentences. A rating of perceived exertion, on a scale of one to ten, is surprisingly reliable once an athlete learns to use it honestly. Heart rate is useful, but formulas such as 220 minus age give only a rough estimate of maximum heart rate, and heat, dehydration and caffeine push it up. Pace is the most direct measure, and the least forgiving on a hot or hilly day.

Many successful endurance programmes spend a large share of their time at easy intensity and keep a few sessions genuinely hard. Beginners tend to run everything moderately hard, which leaves them too tired to go fast on hard days and never recovered on easy ones.

Periodisation

Periodisation is planning training in layers so that an athlete peaks when it matters. The season is the macrocycle, divided into mesocycles of several weeks with a particular emphasis, and those into microcycles, usually a week. A classic season moves from general preparation to specific preparation to competition, then a transition of rest. Before the main race comes a taper: volume falls, intensity is kept, and the athlete arrives fresh.

Young athletes should not copy elite programmes. Long-term development puts enjoyment, broad skills and gradual progression first.

Stage 9Strength, Mobility, Recovery and Sleep

Why athletes lift

Strength training improves performance, because sprinting, jumping and throwing all depend on producing force quickly. Reviews of the research have also found resistance training to be associated with fewer sports injuries, which matters as much to a marathon runner as to a shot putter.

• Distance runners benefit from calf raises, squats and split squats, step-ups, hip-hinge movements, single-leg balance work, and planks. Two short sessions a week make a real difference.
• Sprinters, hurdlers and jumpers add heavier lifting and plyometrics, jumping and bounding exercises that train muscles and tendons to store and release energy quickly.
• Throwers add heavy squats and pulls, often with variations of the Olympic lifts, which must be learned from a qualified coach before any weight is added.

Supervised strength training with good technique is appropriate for children and adolescents. The old belief that lifting weights stunts growth is not supported by the evidence. The risks come from poor technique, heavy loads added too soon, and a lack of supervision, not from lifting itself.

Mobility and the warm-up

Athletes need enough range of movement to get into the positions their events demand: a hurdler's hips, a javelin thrower's shoulder, a sprinter's ankles. That comes from regular mobility work and from the event itself.

A good warm-up has a standard shape.

1. Five to ten minutes of easy jogging to raise body temperature.
2. Dynamic mobility: leg swings, walking lunges, hip circles, arm circles.
3. Drills: skips, high knees, heel flicks, done with good form.
4. Strides or progressive efforts, building towards the speed of the session.
5. Event-specific practice: a few block starts, run-up rehearsals or easy throws.

Long static stretches held just before explosive efforts can slightly reduce power for a short time, so many coaches place them after training or in separate sessions instead.

Recovery

The adaptation to training happens during recovery, which makes recovery part of training rather than a break from it. The foundations are unglamorous: enough sleep, enough food, easy days that are genuinely easy, at least one day a week with little or no training, and a lighter week every few weeks.

Sleep is the most powerful recovery tool there is, and the one most often cut short. Adults generally need seven to nine hours, and teenagers more. Athletes with early training sessions need to go to bed earlier, not simply sleep less. A short afternoon nap helps many athletes, though a long one late in the day can spoil the night's sleep.

Massage, foam rolling, compression garments and ice baths make many athletes feel better, and feeling better has value. The evidence that they speed up physical recovery is mixed. Cold-water immersion straight after strength training may even reduce some of the gains from that session, so athletes who use it often keep it away from strength days.

Stage 10Food, Fluids and Running in the Heat

This stage gives general guidance for healthy athletes. Anyone with diabetes, a heart or kidney condition, an eating disorder, or a history of heat illness should take individual advice from a doctor or a qualified sports dietitian.

Eating for training

The first rule is to eat enough. Carbohydrate is the main fuel for hard running, jumping and throwing, and a training athlete needs plenty of it: rice, roti, poha, idli, potatoes, fruit. Protein repairs and builds tissue, and sports nutrition guidance for athletes commonly suggests somewhere around 1.2 to 2.0 grams per kilogram of body weight each day, spread across meals. Fats, vegetables and fruit supply energy and the vitamins and minerals that training uses.

An ordinary Indian plate does most of this well. Dal, rajma, chana, curd, milk, paneer, eggs, fish, chicken and soya all provide protein, and vegetarian athletes can meet their needs with a little planning, especially by including dairy and pulses at most meals.

Two warnings matter particularly in India. Anaemia is common, especially among women and adolescent girls, and it shows as tiredness, breathlessness and poor performance. A blood test tells you, and iron supplements should be taken only on medical advice, because too much iron is harmful. The second is under-fuelling. Athletes who eat too little for the training they do can develop Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport, known as RED-S, which disrupts hormones, weakens bones and raises the risk of stress fractures. In women, missed periods are an important warning sign. It is a reason to see a doctor, not to train harder.

Most supplements are unnecessary for a young athlete who eats well, and some carry the risk of contamination with banned substances (see Stage 14).

Around sessions and races

A light, carbohydrate-based meal two to three hours before training is usually well tolerated. After a hard session, a meal or snack combining carbohydrate and protein within a couple of hours supports recovery. In events lasting longer than about an hour, such as the marathon, many runners take carbohydrate on the move, commonly in the range of 30 to 60 grams an hour. The gut needs training to cope with that, so practise race-day fuelling on long training runs, never for the first time in a race.

Fluids

Sweat rates vary enormously between people and conditions, and in heat some athletes lose well over a litre an hour. A simple test helps: weigh yourself before and after an hour's run, without clothes. Each kilogram lost is roughly a litre of sweat not replaced.

Drinking to thirst suits most recreational athletes in most sessions. The opposite danger is real too. Drinking far more than you sweat, especially during long, slow races, can dilute the sodium in the blood, a condition called hyponatraemia. Its signs include headache, nausea, bloating, swollen hands, confusion and, at worst, seizures. An athlete who has gained weight during a long race has drunk too much. In long, sweaty sessions an oral rehydration solution or a drink containing a little salt as well as sugar is better than plain water alone.

Heat: the Indian summer problem

The body cools itself mainly by the evaporation of sweat. Heat adds to the load; humidity stops sweat evaporating. A humid coastal morning can therefore be as dangerous as a hotter, drier afternoon inland. Sports medicine measures this with the wet bulb globe temperature, or WBGT, which combines air temperature, humidity, sunshine and wind.

The body acclimatises to heat over roughly ten to fourteen days of gradually increased exposure: sweating starts sooner, heart rate falls and the athlete copes better. The benefit fades over a few weeks away from the heat.

Heat illness ranges from cramps and exhaustion to heatstroke, which kills.

Practical rules for hot months:

• Train early in the morning or in the evening, and avoid hard sessions in the middle of the day.
• Check the India Meteorological Department's heatwave warnings, and treat an orange or red warning as a reason to cut or move a session.
• Wear light-coloured, loose, breathable clothing and a cap, and use sunscreen.
• Run loops that pass water, or carry it. Tell someone your route.
• Do not train hard with a fever, with diarrhoea or vomiting, after a sleepless night, or after drinking alcohol.
• Children and older athletes are more vulnerable, and some medicines raise the risk. Ask a doctor if you take regular medication.

Stage 11Pain, Soreness and Injury: When to Stop

Every athlete gets sore, and most get injured at some point, usually from doing too much too soon rather than from a single accident. Telling soreness from injury is a skill worth learning early. This stage is general guidance, not a diagnosis. When in doubt, stop and ask a physiotherapist or doctor.

Soreness

Delayed onset muscle soreness, or DOMS, follows unfamiliar or unusually hard work, especially downhill running, bounding and new strength exercises. It starts a day or so later, peaks within one to three days, feels like a dull, spread-out ache, eases as you warm up, and fades within a few days. It is a normal response, not damage to worry about.

Stop at once

• Sudden sharp pain, or a pop or tearing feeling, often in the hamstring or calf.
• Pain that makes you limp or change your stride.
• A joint that gives way, locks or swells quickly.
• Pain that grows as you carry on.
• Tenderness at one spot on a bone, or pain when you hop, which can mean a stress fracture.
• Numbness, tingling or sudden weakness.
• Any blow to the head. A suspected concussion means no more training or competition that day, and a medical assessment.
• Chest pain, unusual breathlessness, a racing or irregular heartbeat, dizziness or fainting. These need emergency help: call 112 or 108.

See a physiotherapist or doctor when

• the pain has not clearly improved after about a week of reduced training;
• it hurts at rest or wakes you at night;
• it comes back every time you return to training;
• a child or teenager has persistent heel, knee or back pain, because growth-related conditions need a proper diagnosis;
• a fall or twist leaves swelling, bruising or an odd shape. Do not let anyone manipulate a suspected fracture or dislocation before it has been properly examined and imaged.

Common injuries, and why they happen

Sprinters and jumpers strain hamstrings. Hurdlers and jumpers sprain ankles. Distance runners get shin pain, bone stress injuries, pain in the Achilles and kneecap tendons, pain under the heel, and pain around the kneecap. Throwers load their shoulders, elbows and lower backs.

Behind most of these lies a change: a sudden rise in training, a return after a break, new shoes or a new surface, or too little food and sleep. A previous injury is one of the strongest predictors of the next, which is why rehabilitation should be finished, not abandoned the day the pain stops.

The first days

Reduce or stop whatever hurts, and keep doing what does not: walking, cycling or swimming often remain possible. Protect the injured area for the first few days. Ice wrapped in a cloth may ease pain. Do not use painkillers to keep training through pain, and ask a doctor or pharmacist before taking anti-inflammatory medicines. Recent sports medicine guidance, summarised in the acronym PEACE and LOVE, stresses early protection and then a gradual, symptom-guided return to loading rather than prolonged complete rest.

Return in steps: walking, easy jogging, faster running, then event skills, moving on only when the previous step is comfortable. In India, look for a registered physiotherapist with sports experience, a doctor trained in sports medicine, or an orthopaedic specialist for suspected fractures and ligament injuries.

Stage 12Measuring Performance: Timing, Wind and Records

Timing

At a proper track meet, fully automatic timing starts from the gun and a photo-finish camera, aligned exactly with the finish line, records who crosses it and when. An athlete finishes when the torso reaches the line, not the head, arm or foot. Times are read to the thousandth of a second and published in hundredths, rounded up. Road race times are rounded up to the whole second.

Hand timing, with stopwatches started on the flash or smoke of the gun, is rounded up to the tenth of a second. Hand times tend to be quicker than automatic times, because a timekeeper's thumb reacts late at the start and anticipates the finish. They are not accepted for sprint records, and comparisons with automatic times commonly add roughly a quarter of a second for the shortest sprints.

Road races use chip timing: a transponder on the bib or shoe registers as it crosses mats at the start, at split points and at the finish.

Wind

A wind gauge beside the straight or runway measures the following wind. For a 100 m race it measures for ten seconds from the start, and for the sprint hurdles thirteen. Wind readings are published to a tenth of a metre per second, such as +1.4 or −0.6. If the following wind is more than +2.0 metres per second, the result stands in the competition but is wind-assisted: it cannot be a record and usually cannot be used for qualifying marks. The rule applies to the 100 m, 200 m, sprint hurdles, long jump and triple jump.

Altitude

Thinner air above about 1,000 metres helps sprinters and jumpers, because there is less air resistance, and hinders endurance athletes, because there is less oxygen. Results lists mark such performances with an A.

Field measurements

Jumps and throws are measured with a steel tape or by electronic distance measurement, which bounces a signal off a reflector held at the mark. Distances are recorded to the whole centimetre below. In the high jump and pole vault the bar is measured from the ground to the lowest point of its upper edge.

Measuring yourself

A GPS watch is good on open roads and poor on a track, among tall buildings and in tunnels. On a track, count laps: one lap of the inside lane is 400 metres. The number that matters most is the one you record consistently, on the same loop, with a note of heat, wind and air quality (see Stage 16).

Stage 13Masters Athletics, Clubs and Meets

Masters athletics

In track and field, masters competition begins at 35 and runs in five-year age groups, W35 and M35, W40 and M40, and on into the nineties. The world body is World Masters Athletics, and there are world and area championships as well as national ones. Road races often use their own veteran categories, frequently starting at 40.

As the age groups rise, implements get lighter, hurdles get lower, and some hurdle races get shorter. Age grading converts a performance into a percentage of the standard for that age and sex, so that a 64-year-old's 5 km can be fairly compared with a 25-year-old's.

Older athletes recover more slowly, need longer warm-ups, and gain more from strength and balance training than younger ones. Calf and Achilles strains are a frequent problem for masters sprinters. Anyone starting hard training after years away should see a doctor first (see Stage 1). In India, ask your state athletics association which masters meets are recognised and how selection for Asian and world masters championships works.

Clubs, groups and coaches

In some countries athletics runs through clubs, in others through schools and universities. In India it runs through school and college teams, academies, government training centres, employers such as the Railways and the Services, and, for road running, informal running groups (see Stages 20 and 21). Whatever the form, a group gives coaching, training partners, track access and a route into competition.

A good coach has a recognised coaching qualification, such as a diploma from the Netaji Subhas National Institute of Sports in Patiala or a World Athletics coaching education course, and a record of keeping athletes healthy over years, not only of producing fast juniors. Be wary of anyone who promises quick results, pushes supplements, or offers injections "for recovery". For children, sessions should happen in the open where parents can watch, and no coach should arrange unsupervised one-to-one time away from others.

Competing in a meet

Entries close before the meet, and organisers usually require proof of age and identity. For national competitions in India, athletes generally need to be registered with the federation through their state association.

On the day, arrive early and collect your bib. Report to the call room at the stated time before your event, where officials check bibs, spikes and clothing before leading athletes to the start. Track events run in rounds, with a Q against the names of those who qualify by place and a q for those who go through on time. In field events athletes take their trials in a set order, may place check marks beside the runway, and have a time limit for each attempt. Protests go first to the referee, and a further appeal to a jury of appeal.

Stage 14Clean Sport: Anti-Doping Basics

Athletics has suffered more doping scandals than most sports, partly because its results are so easy to compare. Every athlete who competes where testing happens should know the basics. In India that can include national age-group and student competitions as well as senior ones.

Who runs it

The World Anti-Doping Agency, WADA, founded in 1999, maintains the World Anti-Doping Code, which sets the rules for all sport. National agencies apply it at home. India's is the National Anti-Doping Agency, NADA India, given a statutory basis by the National Anti-Doping Act, 2022. In international athletics, testing and discipline are handled by the Athletics Integrity Unit, set up by the governing body in 2017.

Strict liability

Athletes are responsible for any prohibited substance found in their sample, whether or not they meant to take it and whoever gave it to them. "My coach gave it to me" and "I didn't know" are not defences.

The Prohibited List

WADA publishes the Prohibited List, updated at least once a year, with each new list taking effect on 1 January. Some substances are banned at all times, including anabolic steroids, hormones such as EPO, and diuretics and masking agents. Others, including many stimulants, are banned only in competition. Methods are banned too, such as blood doping and tampering with samples. Some ordinary medicines contain prohibited substances, including certain cold and flu remedies, some asthma treatments, and weight-loss and "energy" products.

If you have a genuine medical condition that needs a prohibited medicine, apply for a Therapeutic Use Exemption, or TUE, from the relevant anti-doping organisation, in most cases before you use it. Tell every doctor who treats you that you are a tested athlete.

Supplements

No supplement is guaranteed free of prohibited substances. Products can be contaminated or mislabelled, and athletes in India, as elsewhere, have been banned after taking supplements they believed were safe. Independent batch-testing schemes reduce the risk but do not remove it. Be especially wary of unlabelled powders, tonics and injections offered at gyms.

Being tested

Testing can happen at any time, in or out of competition. After notification, the athlete stays in sight of the chaperone. Athletes may have a representative with them, and minors are entitled to one. The urine sample is given under direct observation by an official of the same gender, divided into A and B bottles that the athlete seals, and recorded on a form listing recent medicines and supplements. Blood samples may also be taken. Refusing, evading or tampering with a test is a violation in itself.

Elite athletes in a registered testing pool must file their whereabouts, including a daily one-hour slot when they can be found. Three missed tests or filing failures within twelve months count as a violation.

Serious first violations can bring bans of up to four years, and coaches, doctors and parents who supply or help can be sanctioned too.

Storage and Preservation

Stage 15Storage and Care of Kit: Shoes, Spikes, Clothing, Implements and Watches

Most of what an athlete owns is meant to be used up. Shoes wear out, clothing stretches, batteries age. But kit wears out far faster than it should when it is stored badly, and some of it cannot be replaced: the spikes from a first state final, a club vest, a javelin that suits one particular arm. Worse, a worn or damaged implement can injure someone. This stage covers physical kit. Stage 16 covers records and keepsakes, the Indian climate, the target conditions and a year-round routine.

The enemies of kit

Running shoes

A running shoe's cushioning is a midsole foam. Most are based on EVA, a light rubbery foam. Others use TPU, and many racing shoes use newer PEBA-based foams. Each stride squashes the foam and it springs back, but over hundreds of kilometres its structure breaks down and the shoe cushions and supports less. Foams and glues also age on the shelf. A pair bought on sale and kept for years may have hardened, and polyurethane parts can crumble in humid storage. Buy shoes when you need them, not in bulk.

Heat does the most damage in the least time. Never leave shoes in a car in summer, on a sunny balcony or terrace, beside a geyser, or on a hot roof to dry. Heat softens glues so that soles separate, and it can distort the upper and heel counter.

To dry wet shoes, take out the insoles, loosen the laces, stuff the shoes with newspaper, and change the paper after an hour or two. Leave them in shade with moving air, and a fan helps. Do not dry them in the sun, on a heater or in a tumble dryer, and do not put them in a washing machine unless the maker says you may. Clean the outside with a soft brush and mild soap.

Store shoes in a cool, dry, ventilated place, off the floor and not crushed under other kit. An open rack is better than a closed plastic box, and never seal damp shoes in plastic.

Rotation, alternating two pairs, lets each dry fully between runs, which matters in the monsoon. At least one study has found that runners who used more than one pair had fewer injuries, though that shows an association rather than proof that rotation caused it.

Spikes

Spikes have a stiff plate with threaded sockets for removable pins, usually steel, in shapes such as pyramid, needle and "Christmas tree". World Athletics rules limit how far a pin may project, with a longer limit allowed in the high jump and javelin, and many track owners ask for shorter pins still to protect the surface. Check the rules and the venue before a meet.

After every session, knock out mud and rubber crumbs, wipe the spikes, and dry them away from heat. Check the pins with the spike key before each session. A loose pin falls out, and its empty socket fills with grit. Do not overtighten, which strips the threads in the plate. Replace pins that are rusty or rounded, and keep spares and the key in the spike bag. Never walk in spikes on concrete, tiles or roads, which blunts pins, damages plates and invites a fall.

At the end of the season, remove the pins, clean the sockets with an old toothbrush, and refit them with a light smear of petroleum jelly on the threads so they do not seize. A seized pin needs penetrating oil, patience and the correct key, not pliers.

Keepsake spikes should be cleaned, have their pins removed, be dried thoroughly, be stuffed with acid-free tissue, and be kept in a breathable cotton bag inside a box with silica gel. Photograph them. Their foam will harden in time whatever you do.

Technical clothing

Running kit is mostly polyester, nylon and elastane. Synthetic fibres wick sweat well, but body oils cling to them and bacteria thrive, which is why they hold odour. Wash kit soon after use. A sweaty vest left overnight in a closed bag in humid weather is a culture for mould and bacteria.

Wash inside out in cool water with a mild detergent, fasten zips and hook-and-loop tabs, and skip fabric softener, which coats the fibres, reduces wicking and traps smells. Dry in the shade. Strong sun fades colours and degrades elastane, which then loses its stretch, and hot tumble drying or ironing peels printed logos and reflective strips. Many athletes find that soaking stubborn kit in cool water with a little white vinegar before washing helps; test a hidden area first. Replace sports bras and compression garments when they have stretched or no longer support.

Keepsake vests and race shirts should be washed, dried fully, folded with acid-free tissue in the folds, and stored flat in a cotton bag or archival box, not in plastic and not on a wire hanger in the sun.

Throwing implements and vaulting poles

Store implements indoors, dry and off the floor. Shots and hammer heads belong in individual slots on a rack so they cannot roll into each other. Iron shots rust: wipe them dry after wet sessions, and for long storage give them a very light coat of protective oil, then wipe it off completely before use, because a greasy implement slips. Remove loose rust with a stiff brush, never a grinder, which removes metal and can take an implement out of specification. Wooden-bodied discuses can swell and split in the monsoon.

Hang javelins vertically or lay them on a rack that supports them along their length. Never lean them against a wall, which bends the shaft. Fit tip protectors, and carry javelins in a tube when travelling. Keep hammer wires loosely uncoiled, never kinked, and clean and lubricate the swivel as the maker directs.

Vaulting poles live in protective tubes, away from heat and sun. A gouge in fibreglass from a spike or a drop can become the point at which it breaks.

GPS watches and heart-rate straps

The lithium-ion battery in a watch dislikes heat above all. Do not leave a watch on a car dashboard or charge it in hot sun. If a watch will sit unused for months, charge it to about half, switch it off, and top it up every few months, unless the maker advises otherwise.

Sweat corrodes charging contacts. After a sweaty session, rinse a water-resistant watch in fresh water, dry it, and wipe the contacts with a soft dry cloth. Never charge a watch while it is wet or sweaty. Wash silicone straps too, because trapped sweat irritates skin. Water resistance declines as seals age, and hot water and soap weaken them faster.

A chest strap needs rinsing in fresh water after every run, with its sensor pod unclipped, and hand-washing as the maker directs. On many models the sensor wakes when its electrodes are damp, so storing it clipped to a wet strap drains the battery. Most use a coin cell such as a CR2032. When replacing it, check that the rubber seal sits properly, and keep coin cells away from children, because a swallowed one can cause serious internal burns.

A swollen battery, shown by a bulging case back or a lifting screen, means stop using and charging the device at once. Do not puncture it. Take it to a service centre or an e-waste collection point.

Stage 16Preserving the Record: Training Logs, Data, Medals, Bibs and Photographs

An athlete's most useful possession is not a shoe but a record. A training log shows what came before your best race and what came before your worst injury. Results and certificates open doors to admissions and jobs. Medals, bibs and photographs are how a family remembers a sporting life. All of them are routinely lost to monsoon damp, dead devices, closed websites and spring cleaning.

Paper training logs

Choose a notebook with a sewn binding, which outlasts spiral and glued ones. Write in pencil or a pigment-based pen; some ballpoint and gel inks smudge or run if the page gets damp. Store logs upright on a shelf in a dry interior room, not in a trunk on the floor. Silverfish and cockroaches eat paper and bindings, and termites move through wooden cupboards.

At the end of every season, photograph or scan every page and save the result as a PDF. It takes an evening and it is the cheapest insurance an athlete can buy. Never laminate a logbook, and never mend it with sticky tape.

Digital logs and device data

Platforms close, change their terms or move features behind a subscription. Devices stop syncing and apps are discontinued. Accounts are lost when an old email address lapses. The data you assume is safe "in the app" belongs, in practice, to whoever runs the app.

• Export regularly. Most large training platforms offer a bulk export of your account. Watches store each activity as a file, commonly in the FIT format, and GPX and TCX files are widely readable by other software.
• Keep your own master record. A plain spreadsheet with date, session, distance, time, effort, shoe and notes will open in fifty years; a proprietary app may not open in five.
• Export before any change: a new watch, a new phone, a new platform, or closing an account. Export before selling or returning a watch, then reset it to factory settings.
• Name files so they sort by date, for example 2026-01-18_half-marathon_race.fit.
• Follow the 3-2-1 rule: three copies, on two different kinds of storage, with one kept somewhere else, such as a cloud service plus an external drive plus a family member's computer.
• Mind your privacy. GPS files reveal where you live and when you run. Use privacy zones, and strip location data before sharing files publicly.

Results and certificates

Results web pages disappear. Save each result as a PDF or screenshot the day it is published. Download e-certificates when they are issued, not when you need them. Instant timing slips at races are often printed on thermal paper, which fades with heat, light and contact with plastic, so photograph them the same day.

Paper certificates from district, state and national meets can matter for years, for sports-quota admissions and recruitment. Keep the originals flat in an acid-free folder or polyester sleeve, with scans stored separately. No staples, pins, lamination or sticky tape. If you frame one, use UV-filtering glazing and hang it away from sunlight.

Medals

Most finisher medals are die-cast zinc alloy with a plated finish and coloured enamel. Plating wears through, zinc alloys can grow a white or grey powdery corrosion in damp conditions, and silver-coloured plating tarnishes. Handle medals by the edge or ribbon with clean, dry hands, and wipe them with a soft dry cloth. Thin nitrile gloves help with bright plated medals and glossy photographs, where fingerprints show; loose cotton gloves reduce grip and make drops more likely. Never use metal polish, abrasives or toothpaste. The tamarind and lemon that brighten a brass vessel will strip a plated medal. If a medal or document has historical importance, such as a grandparent's early national championship medal, ask a professional conservator or a museum before attempting any cleaning or repair.

Store medals individually in soft cloth pouches or polyethylene zip bags with a card label, inside a closed box with silica gel. Medal hangers are cheerful, but sunlight fades ribbons and dust settles, so hang them away from windows, kitchens and bathrooms, and photograph the whole collection once a year.

Race bibs

Most bibs are printed on Tyvek, a tough sheet material made from high-density polyethylene fibres that resists tearing and water; some are paper. Remove safety pins soon after the race, because they rust and stain. Flatten a creased bib under heavy books. Never iron Tyvek, which is a plastic and will shrink or melt. Store bibs in polyester or polypropylene sleeves in a ring binder, with a label in the sleeve giving race, date, time and result, rather than writing on the bib. Returnable timing chips must go back to the organisers.

Photographs

Download the full-resolution race photographs you buy promptly, because photo services often keep them only for a limited period. Keep printed photographs out of self-adhesive "magnetic" albums and PVC pockets, both of which stain and yellow prints. Use albums with polyester or polypropylene sleeves or acid-free pages, write on the back with a soft pencil, and scan old family prints of earlier generations' sporting days.

The Indian climate

Monsoon humidity is the great destroyer. In much of India relative humidity stays high for weeks, and mould appears inside shoes and bags within days, spike pins and iron shots rust, certificates develop foxing (brown spotting caused by mould and oxidation), and silverfish multiply. Dry kit fully with fans, rotate shoes, and put records and medals into closed boxes with silica gel before the rains arrive.

Coastal salt air in Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Kochi and Visakhapatnam speeds the corrosion of pins, implements, watch contacts and medal plating. Wipe metal kit after use and keep it in closed containers.

North Indian summer heat turns top-floor rooms under a concrete roof slab into ovens, and parked cars into something worse. Keep shoes, spikes, watches, spare batteries and poles in the coolest interior room.

Dust storms in the pre-monsoon months drive grit into spike threads, zips, watch buttons and hammer swivels. Bag kit and clean it after windy days.

Power cuts stop dehumidifiers and air conditioners, often in the most humid weeks. Silica gel in sealed boxes works without electricity.

Termites travel through wooden almirahs and shelves fixed to damp walls. A steel almirah standing slightly away from the wall is safer for logs, certificates and photographs.

Silica gel is the affordable answer. Buy the indicating kind that changes colour when saturated, and recharge it by spreading the beads on a tray in an oven at a low setting, typically around 100 to 120°C, for a couple of hours or as the maker directs. Take care with sachets whose paper covers may scorch. The older blue gel contains a cobalt compound considered toxic, so keep it away from children and food. Store recharged gel in an airtight jar. A digital thermo-hygrometer, which costs a few hundred rupees (2026), placed inside the cupboard or box, will not be precise, but it shows whether conditions are improving or getting worse.

Disaster planning

In flood-prone areas, keep records and medals well above floor level in waterproof boxes, never in a ground-floor store or basement. Keep digital copies of logs, certificates and photographs somewhere other than your home. Photograph valuable watches and medals and note serial numbers for insurance, and ask whether your household policy covers them at all. If you have to leave in a hurry, take original certificates first, then the medals that mean most. Shoes and watches can be replaced.

A year-round routine

Stage 17From Paris to Rome: The Early Years and Milkha Singh

The first Olympic medals credited to India in any sport were won in athletics, in 1900 (see the sidebar below). Organised track and field then spread through colonial India's schools, colleges, army units and physical education institutions. The YMCA College of Physical Education, founded in Madras in 1920, trained generations of physical education teachers who took athletics into schools. India sent small teams to the Olympic Games from 1920 onwards, with athletes among them.

Independence brought national ambition. The first Asian Games were held in New Delhi in 1951, with athletics at their heart, and Indian athletes won a string of titles, the sprinter Lavy Pinto among them in the 100 m and 200 m.

Milkha Singh

Milkha Singh was born in undivided Punjab, in a village that is now in Pakistan. He lost members of his family in the violence of Partition and reached India as a refugee. He found running in the Army.

At the 1956 Melbourne Olympics he went out in the heats, raw and unknown. Two years later he won the 200 m and 400 m at the Asian Games in Tokyo, and the 440 yards at the Commonwealth Games in Cardiff, becoming the first Indian to win an athletics gold at the Commonwealth Games.

His defining race was the 400 m final at the 1960 Rome Olympics. The first two men broke the world record, and Milkha Singh finished fourth, a fraction of a second from the bronze. He later said he had eased and looked round during the race, and he spoke of that moment for the rest of his life. His time stood as the Indian record for decades. He won Asian Games gold again in 1962, in the 400 m and the 4 × 400 m relay.

As the story is usually told, it was Pakistan's President Ayub Khan who called him "the Flying Sikh", after he beat Pakistan's best sprinter in Lahore in 1960. His life became the film Bhaag Milkha Bhaag in 2013, and he died in 2021.

Other athletes of the era deserve their place. Gurbachan Singh Randhawa won the decathlon at the 1962 Asian Games and reached the final of the 110 m hurdles at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Sriram Singh reached the 800 m final at the 1976 Montreal Olympics and set a national record that lasted more than four decades.

Stage 18P. T. Usha, Anju Bobby George and the Long Wait

From Rome in 1960 until the new century, Indian athletics was strong in Asia and heartbreakingly close at the very top.

P. T. Usha

P. T. Usha grew up in Payyoli, on the Malabar coast in Kerala's Kozhikode district, and was picked out as a schoolgirl through a state sports programme. Her long-time coach was O. M. Nambiar. She ran at the 1980 Moscow Olympics as a teenager, and won silver in the 100 m and 200 m at the 1982 Asian Games in New Delhi.

At the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics she reached the final of the 400 m hurdles, the first Indian woman to run in an Olympic final, and finished fourth. At the 1986 Asian Games in Seoul she won four gold medals and a silver. The country called her the "Payyoli Express".

Her influence outlasted her racing. She set up a school of athletics in Kerala that has trained international athletes, was nominated to the Rajya Sabha in 2022, and in December that year became the first woman elected president of the Indian Olympic Association.

Kerala's production of women athletes, from school meets and state sports hostels, became one of the great patterns in Indian sport. At the 2002 Asian Games, K. M. Beenamol won the 800 m.

Anju Bobby George

Anju Bobby George, a long jumper from Kerala coached by her husband Robert Bobby George, won bronze at the 2002 Commonwealth Games and gold at the Asian Games that year. At the 2003 World Championships in Paris she won bronze, India's first medal at the World Championships in Athletics. She has since said publicly that she competed with only one functioning kidney. With her husband she went on to run an academy for young athletes in Bengaluru.

Other breakthroughs followed. At the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi, Indian women took all three discus medals, with Krishna Poonia winning gold. At the 2016 Rio Olympics, Lalita Babar reached the final of the 3000 m steeplechase.

Stage 19Neeraj Chopra and the New Generation

Neeraj Chopra

Neeraj Chopra was born in 1997 and grew up in Khandra, a village near Panipat in Haryana. He went to the stadium in Panipat as a boy to get fit, found the javelin, and rose fast. In 2016 he won the World Under-20 Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland, with a world junior record, and then joined the Indian Army. In 2018 he won gold at both the Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games. Along the way he worked with coaches including Uwe Hohn, whose record with the old javelin appears in Stage 5, and the German biomechanics specialist Klaus Bartonietz.

On 7 August 2021, at the Tokyo Olympic Games, he won the javelin with a throw of 87.58 metres. It was India's first Olympic gold medal in athletics, and the country's second individual Olympic gold in any sport, after Abhinav Bindra's in shooting in 2008. The federation has since marked 7 August as National Javelin Day.

He did not stop there. He won silver at the 2022 World Championships in Eugene, took the Diamond League trophy the same year, and in 2023 in Budapest became India's first world champion in athletics. At the 2024 Paris Olympics he won silver, behind Pakistan's Arshad Nadeem, who set an Olympic record.

A wider generation

Neeraj Chopra's success came alongside a broader rise.

• Hima Das won the 400 m at the 2018 World Under-20 Championships, the first Indian to win a global title on the track.
• Avinash Sable won steeplechase silver at the 2022 Commonwealth Games, gold at the 2023 Asian Games, and reached the Olympic final in Paris.
• The men's 4 × 400 m relay team set an Asian record in the heats of the 2023 World Championships and reached the final.
• Tajinderpal Singh Toor won the shot put at the Asian Games in 2018 and 2023.
• At the 2022 Commonwealth Games, Eldhose Paul and Abdulla Aboobacker won gold and silver in the triple jump, Murali Sreeshankar silver in the long jump, and Priyanka Goswami silver in the race walk.
• At the 2023 Asian Games, Annu Rani won the javelin and Parul Chaudhary the 5000 m.

India's para athletes have been the most successful of all at the highest level. Devendra Jhajharia won Paralympic javelin gold in 2004 and 2016. Mariyappan Thangavelu won high jump gold in 2016, when Deepa Malik also won shot put silver, the first Paralympic medal by an Indian woman. Sumit Antil won javelin gold at both Tokyo and Paris.

Stage 20The Federation, Training Centres, Schools and Universities

The federation

The Athletics Federation of India (AFI) governs the sport nationally and is affiliated to World Athletics and the Asian Athletics Association. Beneath it sit state associations, and beneath those district associations. The federation selects national teams, runs the national championships in their several forms, including senior, age-group and cross-country events, sets qualifying standards, registers athletes and ratifies national records.

The state and the employers

The Sports Authority of India (SAI), under the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, runs training centres and hosts national camps, including at the Netaji Subhas National Institute of Sports in Patiala and the SAI centre in Bengaluru. The ministry's Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS) funds elite athletes' training, coaching and competition, and the Khelo India programme runs youth and university games and supports training centres around the country. The National Games bring the states together in a multi-sport event.

For decades, the secure route for an Indian athlete has been a job. The Services, the Railways and public-sector employers recruit through sports quotas and give athletes time to train. Neeraj Chopra and Avinash Sable are both Army athletes.

Schools

Most Indian athletes begin at a school sports day on a grass or earth track marked out in lime. From there the path runs to zonal, district and state school meets, organised through state education departments and school boards, and on to the national school games run by the School Games Federation of India. Kerala's school sports meets have long been famous as a nursery for national athletes. State sports hostels and sports schools take promising children in for coaching and schooling together.

Universities

The Association of Indian Universities runs the inter-university championships, long a proving ground for athletes in their late teens and early twenties. Note that its initials, AIU, are the same as those of the Athletics Integrity Unit in Stage 14, which regularly confuses newcomers. The Khelo India University Games have added another level of competition.

Honest problems

The system has well-known weaknesses. Age fraud in junior competition, athletes competing against children younger than themselves, has been a long-running problem, and the federation has used medical age-verification checks at junior meets. Doping is another: WADA's published figures have repeatedly placed India among the countries with the most anti-doping violations. And good coaching and synthetic tracks remain thin in many districts. None of this is unique to India, but a young athlete and their family should know it exists.

Stage 21City Marathons and the Running-Group Boom

For most of the twentieth century, running in India was something athletes and soldiers did. That changed quickly after 2004, when the first Mumbai Marathon was held. It was followed by the Delhi Half Marathon in 2005, the World 10K in Bengaluru in 2008 and a 25 km race in Kolkata, all organised by Procam International. Race names carry sponsors that change over time, so they are best remembered by city.

The big races combine an elite field, where East African runners usually win the prize-money categories, separate prize categories for Indian elite athletes, and tens of thousands of amateurs in half marathons, 10 km runs and shorter fun runs. They also became large charity fundraising occasions.

Around them grew hundreds of smaller events: 5 km and 10 km runs in towns across the country, trail races in the Western Ghats and the hills, and very long ultramarathons. High-altitude races in Ladakh start at around 3,500 metres, where runners need to arrive days early to acclimatise, and anyone entering one should follow the organisers' medical guidance to the letter.

Running groups

The less visible change was social. Groups of runners began meeting before dawn in parks and on city roads, some as friends, some through workplaces, some as paid coaching groups with structured plans. Women-only groups and runs made early-morning running safer and more welcoming for many women. A running group gives what a club gives elsewhere: company, a plan, and someone who notices when you do not turn up.

Entry fees range from a few hundred rupees for small local runs to several thousand for the major marathons (2026). Some of the biggest races ask for proof of an earlier timed finish before accepting entries to the full marathon.

Two cautions. Cardiac emergencies do happen at Indian races, as everywhere. Older runners, beginners with risk factors, and anyone with symptoms should see a doctor before training for a long race, and nobody should race with a fever. And a marathon in heat or bad air is not the same event as one on a cool morning; organisers sometimes adjust, and runners should be ready to slow down or stop (see Stages 10 and 22).

Stage 22Training in Indian Conditions: Heat, Pollution, Monsoon and Altitude

India gives an athlete almost every condition that sports science warns about, sometimes in the same month.

Heat and humidity

Stage 10 covers heat illness in detail. In practice, most Indian distance runners build base fitness through the summer in the early morning and race from October to February. Coastal humidity in Chennai, Mumbai and Kolkata makes a given temperature harder, so pace by effort rather than by the watch. Athletes who fast for religious reasons, whether during Ramzan or other observances, can move training to after the fast breaks, lower intensity, and avoid hard sessions in heat while fasting.

Air pollution

Air quality can be a bigger limit than heat, especially in north India in winter, when smoke and cold, still air trap fine particles near the ground. India's National Air Quality Index turns pollution readings into six bands.

Monsoon

The rains bring slippery paths, waterlogged tracks, and open drains and manholes hidden under floodwater. Avoid wading through floodwater, especially with cuts on the feet, because of the risk of leptospirosis, and see a doctor about any fever that follows. Mosquitoes carrying dengue bite during the day as well as at dusk, so use repellent. Stop outdoor training when you hear thunder and shelter inside a building, not under a tree. Many athletes shift monsoon weeks towards strength work, treadmill running and indoor sessions.

Streets, traffic and dogs

Where there is no footpath, run facing oncoming traffic, and wear reflective kit on unlit roads before dawn. Any dog bite or scratch that breaks the skin needs thorough washing with soap and running water, and medical attention for anti-rabies vaccination the same day. Do not wait to see whether it heals.

Altitude

Training at altitude, where the air holds less oxygen, can raise the blood's oxygen-carrying capacity over some weeks. Many coaches favour living high and training lower. Indian distance runners have used hill stations such as Ooty in the Nilgiris, and national squads have also trained at altitude abroad. Iron status matters for altitude adaptation, so a blood test beforehand is sensible.

Altitude also carries real danger. At Leh, around 3,500 metres, visitors need to rest on arrival and avoid exertion for the first days. Headache, nausea and breathlessness are signs of acute mountain sickness. Worsening symptoms, confusion, or breathlessness at rest mean descending and getting medical help immediately.

Glossary

A

Acclimatisation — the body's gradual adjustment to heat or altitude over days and weeks. [Stage 10]

Age grading — expressing a performance as a percentage of the standard for the athlete's age and sex. [Stage 13]

Air Quality Index — India's national scale turning air pollution readings into six bands from Good to Severe. [Stage 22]

Athletics Integrity Unit — the body handling anti-doping and integrity cases in international athletics. [Stage 14]

B

Block — the firm stopping of the front side of the body in a throw, passing momentum into the implement. [Stage 5]

Break line — the line after the first bend of an 800 m where athletes may leave their lanes. [Stage 3]

C

Call room — the area where officials check athletes before leading them to their event. [Stage 13]

Chip time — a runner's time measured from crossing the start line, also called net time. [Stage 7]

Combined events — the decathlon, heptathlon and pentathlon, scored on points. [Stage 6]

D

DOMS — delayed onset muscle soreness, the normal ache a day or two after unfamiliar exercise. [Stage 11]

E

Electronic distance measurement — measuring jumps and throws by a signal reflected from the landing mark. [Stage 12]

EVA — ethylene-vinyl acetate, a foam used in many running shoe midsoles. [Stage 15]

F

FIT file — a common file format in which sports watches store activities. [Stage 16]

Fosbury Flop — the back-first high jump technique used by almost all modern jumpers. [Stage 4]

Foxing — brown spotting on paper caused by mould and oxidation in damp conditions. [Stage 16]

Fully automatic timing — timing started by the gun and read from a photo-finish camera. [Stage 12]

G

Glide — the shot put technique in which the athlete travels backwards across the circle in a straight line. [Stage 5]

Gun time — a runner's time measured from the start signal, used for official placings. [Stage 7]

H

Heatstroke — a life-threatening rise in body temperature with confusion or collapse; cool at once and call for help. [Stage 10]

Hyponatraemia — dangerously low blood sodium, often from drinking far more than is sweated out. [Stage 10]

M

Masters — competition for athletes aged 35 and over, in five-year age groups. [Stage 13]

Midsole — the cushioning foam layer of a running shoe between the upper and the outsole. [Stage 15]

P

Periodisation — planning training in cycles so that an athlete peaks for the most important competitions. [Stage 8]

Personal best — the best performance an athlete has ever achieved in an event, shortened to PB. [Stage 1]

Plyometrics — jumping and bounding exercises that train fast, elastic force. [Stage 9]

Prohibited List — WADA's list of banned substances and methods, updated at least once a year. [Stage 14]

PVC — polyvinyl chloride, a plastic to avoid for storing paper and photographs. [Stage 16]

R

RED-S — Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport, the harm caused by eating too little for the training done. [Stage 10]

Rotational technique — throwing the shot with a spin, as in the discus. [Stage 5]

S

Short-course prevention factor — the extra metre per kilometre added when a road course is measured. [Stage 7]

Silica gel — a moisture-absorbing material that can be dried out and reused. [Stage 16]

Spike pins — the removable, threaded metal points on the sole plate of a spike shoe. [Stage 15]

Steeplechase — a 3000 m track race with 28 barriers and 7 water jumps. [Stage 3]

Strict liability — the anti-doping principle that athletes are responsible for whatever is found in their sample. [Stage 14]

T

Takeover zone — the marked section of track within which a relay baton must be passed. [Stage 2]

Taper — reducing training volume before a major competition while keeping intensity. [Stage 8]

Therapeutic Use Exemption — permission to use a prohibited medicine for a genuine medical need. [Stage 14]

Tyvek — a tough polyethylene sheet material on which most race bibs are printed. [Stage 16]

U

Upsweep and downsweep — the two ways of placing the baton into a relay runner's hand. [Stage 2]

W

WBGT — wet bulb globe temperature, a heat-stress measure combining temperature, humidity, sun and wind. [Stage 10]

Whereabouts — the daily location information that elite athletes in a testing pool must provide. [Stage 14]

Wind-assisted — a sprint or jump result with a following wind above 2.0 metres per second, not valid for records. [Stage 12]

Further Reading and Organisations

Rules and governance

• World Athletics, Competition and Technical Rules, in their current edition.
• World Anti-Doping Agency, the World Anti-Doping Code and the annual Prohibited List.
• Athletics Federation of India, national championship regulations and qualifying standards for the current season.

Training

• Tudor Bompa, Periodization: Theory and Methodology of Training.
• Jack Daniels, Daniels' Running Formula.
• Pete Pfitzinger and Scott Douglas, Advanced Marathoning.
• World Athletics coaching education materials, available through national federations.

The Indian story

• Milkha Singh with Sonia Sanwalka, The Race of My Life, his autobiography.
• Official reports of the Asian Games, Commonwealth Games and Olympic Games for Indian results.

Organisations

• World Athletics, and the Asian Athletics Association.
• Athletics Federation of India, and the state and district athletics associations.
• Sports Authority of India, including the Netaji Subhas National Institute of Sports, Patiala.
• Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, for the Target Olympic Podium Scheme and Khelo India.
• Indian Olympic Association, and the Paralympic Committee of India.
• National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA India), the World Anti-Doping Agency, and the Athletics Integrity Unit.
• World Masters Athletics.
• School Games Federation of India, and the Association of Indian Universities.
• India Meteorological Department, for heatwave warnings.
• Association of International Marathons and Distance Races (AIMS), for course measurement.
• Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH), for advice on conserving historically important documents and objects.

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