OLYMPIC HISTORY

TRACK EVENTS

Track and field events formed part of the inaugural modern Games of 1896. Track races included 100, 400, 800 and 1,500 metres, and the 110 metres hurdles, the marathon was run on the road from Marathon to Athens and the long jump, high jump, triple jump and pole vault on the field completed the picture.

Athletics provided the first Olympic title of the modern era, when James Brendan Connolly leapt 13.71m in two hops and a jump to win the triple jump crown by a metre over Alexandre Tuffere of France. Connolly's place in history was secured by his decision to drop out of Harvard when the dean refused to allow him time off to go to the Games in Athens. His triumph followed a voyage of 16 and a half days on a ship from the US to Naples and a train journey to Athens.

Having arrived in the Greek capital late on the evening of April 5, Connolly and his US team-mates were awoken by a brass band at 4am the next day; they had forgotten that the Greek calendar differed from that used in the US at the time and the Games were due to start that day and not 12 days later as the Americans had believed. By bedtime that same day Connolly had become the first Olympic champion since Barasdates, a boxer from Armenia, had collected the last title of the ancient Games. The American later became a war correspondent and respected author. When offered an honorary degree from Harvard he refused it. He died in 1957 at 87.

In 1900 the track events were run on grass and marked the start of an American domination that has stood the test of time, the greatest challenge to the US coming from the Soviet bloc countries in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. In 1904, George Poage became the first black runner to win an Olympic medal, a bronze in the 400 metres hurdles, but on the same day Joseph Stadler became the first black athlete to win an Olympic medal, with a silver in the standing high jump behind the great Ray Ewry.

Ewry remains the man who has won more gold medals than any other in Olympic history, his 10 gold medals having been won at the 1900, 1904, 1906 intercalated Games, and 1908. Eight of those victories came in individual events, another record for Ewry.

Automatic timing was introduced at the 1912 Games but that novelty was overshadowed by the achievements of Jim Thorpe, of the US, who won both the pentathlon and decathlon, finished fourth in the high jump, seventh in the long jump and helped the US to victory at baseball. His decathlon effort would have won him the Olympic crown at the 1948 Games, so ahead of his time was Thorpe. Having been paid a "wage" as a baseball player some time before the 1912 Games, Thorpe was later stripped of his medals and died without them having been returned to him. The IOC relented in 1982 and Thorpe's children were handed the medals in 1983.

In 1920 at the Games in Antwerp, the world witnessed the emergence of one of the greatest athletes in history, Paavo Nurmi, of Finland. In Antwerp and at the two subsequent Games, he would win nine gold medals among a total of 12 medals. In 1920 he won the 10,000 metres and the cross-country. His greatest few days came at the 1924 Games in Paris, where he won the 1,500 and 5,000 metres, the cross-country and was a member of the winning 3,000 metres relay, but was denied a chance to win a fifth gold medal by Finnish officials who said he had too much on his plate to attempt to defend the 10,000 metres. He regained it in 1928 to win the last of his gold medals; in 1932 he was favourite for the 10,000 metres and marathon titles but was barred by the IOC for having accepted more than his expenses while on tour the year before the Games. His Olympic suspension robbed him of the chance to exceed Ray Ewry's record of ten gold medals.

The events surrounding two British athletes at the 1924 Games would later be romanticised in the Oscar-winning film Chariots of Fire. Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddell ran to great victories in the 100 and 400 metres titles respectively. However, the facts surrounding those victories were stretched into the realms of pure fiction in the film; Abrahams did not run in the race around the courtyard at Trinity College, Cambridge, nor did he see his performance in the 100 metres as making up for his failure in the 200 metres, in which he finished sixth, with Liddell third; the 200 metres was run after the 100 metres. Ultimately, Liddell's story was the more dramatic and tragic; he died in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in China, where he was working as a missionary.

The 1928 Games admitted women athletes for the first time. They got off to a controversial start that would see races of more than 200 metres banned from the Games until 1960. In the 800 metres, several women collapsed of exhaustion and some doctors of the day, as reported by The Times and the Daily Mail, joined the siren voices of those at the forefront of the movement against women in sport by saying that endurance races would make women "become old too soon".

Olympic history is littered with tales that reflect the attitudes of society and stories of great heroes suffering at the hands of pettiness and prejudice. Jesse Owens is a case in point. Against a backdrop of overt racism and in the fevered atmosphere of pre-war Nazi Germany, arguably the greatest black athlete in history won four gold medals at the 1936 Games, over 100 and 200 metres, in the 4 by 100 metres relay and in the long jump. He was later reduced to racing dogs, horses and motorcycles to earn money.

After the Second World War, the 1948 Games of London was honoured by the presence of two of the greatest names in Olympic history; Fanny Blankers-Koen, of The Netherlands, and Emil Zatopek, of Czechoslovakia.

Blankers-Koen, a 30-year-old mother of two, helped to elevate women's events from the sideshow that they had been at the pre-war Games. Her four gold medals came in the 100 and 200 metres, the 80 metres hurdles and as a member of the 4 by 100 metres relay.

Zatopek's victory in the 10,000 metres in London gave only a hint of what was to follow four years later when he became a worthy successor to the crowns of Paavo Nurmi in Helsinki. In just eight days in 1952, Zatopek won the 5,000 metres, the 10,000 metres and the marathon. No-one had ever achieved such a stunning treble before, nor has anyone since. Zatopek's wife, Dana, won the javelin title in 1952.

Emil Zatopek also competed in 1956, finishing sixth in the marathon just six weeks after a hernia operation. The Games that year brought Olympic triumph for a man who would go on to be a leading light in spreading the word for the marathon and establishing the London Marathon as one of the world's great spectacles of sport: Chris Brasher. His resounding victory was not in the marathon, however, but in the 3,000 metres steeplechase, by some 15 metres in an Olympic record of 8min 41.2sec. Brasher, who helped to pace Roger Bannister to the first sub-four minute mile, was disqualified for obstruction soon after his victory. After a lengthy and nervous wait, however, the jury of appeal ruled unanimously in Brasher's favour and he was awarded the gold medal.

The Rome Games of 1960 saw the true emergence of women athletes as distance events were added to the programme for the first time since 1928. The star of the show was Wilma Rudolph, the American sprinter who as a child had suffered polio, pneumonia and scarlet fever but in Rome was nicknamed the "black gazelle" so graceful was her style on the way to three gold medals, over 100, 200 metres and as a member of the 4 by 100 metres relay.

If Rudolph was the sensation of the Games, the controversy was created by the Soviet Press sisters, Iryna and Tamara, whose masculinity raised eyebrows at both the 1960 and 1964 Games. While Iryna won the 110 metres hurdles in 1960 and the pentathlon in 1964, Tamara won the shot put at both Games. Those achievements made them the first sisters to win titles at the same Games. When sex tests were introduced the following year both retired and were never seen at competitions again.

The 1968 Games on the track were marked by the black-gloved closed-fisted salutes of Tommie Smith and John Carlos, in support of Black Power, on the medal rostrum after they finished first and third in the 200 metres. They were protesting against institutionalised racism in the US and appeared barefooted on the rostrum to indicate the poverty of black people in the US. Their stand for human rights caused them to be suspended by the US authorities at the behest of the IOC. Smith and Carlos were vilified in the US and both their marriages broke down. Smith's world record over 200 metres stood for 11 years and he eventually became a coach in California. Carlos was brought back into the fold when he was hired to promote the boycotted 1984 Games in Los Angeles.

Lasse Viren, of Finland, won both the 5,000 and 10,000 metres at both the 1972 and the Africa-boycotted 1976 Games. He was repeatedly questioned about blood-boosting methods, which were then not illegal. Viren always denied engaging in the practice of extracting blood, freezing it, having the body remake its own blood, then putting the extracted blood back into the system just before a race, to boost the oxygen-carrying capacity of the body.

The 1976 Games marked the swansong, at least on the medal rostrum, of Irena Szewinska, of Poland. Few athletes have shown the longevity and versatility of Szewinska, who, between 1964 and 1976, won seven medals in five different events, including three gold, two silver and two bronze. Montreal was also the year in which Alberto Juantorena, of Cuba, became the first athlete to win both the 400 and 800 metres titles.

In 1980, the track events were badly affected by the absence of American athletes. Allan Wells, the Scot, profited by winning the 100m, while the victories of Steve Ovett and Sebastian Coe over 800 and 1,500 metres respectively did not suffer from the same slight, given that their world supremacy was undisputed. Coe retained his title in 1984, another Games that suffered because of a boycott.

The results at those Games of one Carl Lewis were undisputed, though, as he became the first athlete since Jesse Owens in 1936 to win four gold medals at the same Games. Lewis won the 100 and 200 metres, was a member of the 4 by 100 metres relay and won the long jump, a title he would then retain a record three times to lift the title at four successive Games from 1984 to 1996. In winning the long jump in 1996, Lewis matched Paavo Nurmi's tally of nine gold medals, just one shy of Ray Ewry's record ten.

In 1988, Lewis crossed the line second to Ben Johnson in the 100 metres but retained his title after the Canadian's disqualification for a positive drugs test that showed he had used an anabolic steroid to enhance his performance to such a degree that he ran 9.79sec. In third was Linford Christie, of Great Britain, who also tested positive for a banned substance, the stimulant pseudoephedrine. The quantity was small enough, however, for him to face no punishment. As such, he lived to fight another day and won the 100 metres title in 1992 in the absence of Lewis. Christie's present case against suspension for a positive drugs test is still the subject of appeal.

Two of the most successful women athletes of the 1980s were Florence Griffith Joyner, or Flo-Jo, and her sister-in-law Jackie Joyner-Kersee, both Americans. While Flo-Jo won three gold medals and a silver in 1988, Joyner-Kersee finished second in the inaugural heptathlon in 1984, won the title in 1988 and retained it in 1992. In 1988 she also won the long jump and finished third in that event in both 1992 and 1996. She retired in 1998 but in July 2000 announced her intention to make a comeback and compete for the US again in Sydney. At the US trials in Sacramento in July she entered the long jump but failed to qualify.

Ten years after the Seoul Games, Griffith Joyner died of suspected heart failure and athletes at the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur repeated previously voiced suspicions of drug-taking and said her death had "served as a timely warning". Griffith Joyner always denied taking any illegal substances and never tested positive.

Michael Johnson was the star of the track in 1996, his victories over 200 and 400 metres notable both for the distance he put between himself and his rivals - the 200 metres world record of 19.32sec left the packed stadium open-mouthed - and his style of running, which was most accurately and amusingly described by Simon Barnes, of the The Times, as being "like Groucho Marx chasing a waitress".

FIELD EVENTS

The triple jump provided the first Olympic champion, James Connolly, of the US, since the Armenian boxer Prince Varasdates won his ancient Games title in 369AD. But it was the long jump that provided one of the most sensational moments in Olympic history. It was one that lent the term Beamonesque to all subsequent records that could be described as extraordinary; Bob Beamon's leap of 29ft 2.5in at the Mexico Games in 1968. Mike Powell, of the US, broke that world record in 1991 but Beamon's standard remains the Olympic record 32 years on. Beyond Powell, the closest anyone has come to Beamon's best is Carl Lewis, who has excelled all jumpers in terms of longevity; in 1996 Lewis, of the US, collected a record fourth successive Olympic long jump title. That matched the record held by the first and only other man to achieve four successive titles in the same event, Al Oerter, the American discus thrower who won his event from 1956 to 1968.

Beamon dominated the 1968 Games but there was another great moment in the field events that changed the face of a discipline: the Fosbury Flop. Dick Fosbury, of the US, won the high jump title after employing a new technique. The traditional style had long been that introduced by George Horine of the US in 1912, in which the jumper would leap and roll over the bar, one leg following the other. Fosbury changed all that by leaping backwards over the bar and flipping his legs up at the last moment.

The greatest pole vaulter of the modern era is Sergei Bubka, with a handful of world titles and more than 30 world records to his name. He won the title in 1988 and was clear favourite for the 1992 title, if not the 1996 title, but failed on both occasions. The only man to have retained the pole vault crown is Robert Richards, of the US, who won in 1952 and 1956, the Games at which fibreglass poles were introduced.

Among throwing events, the discus was one of the six field events chosen for the first modern Olympic Games in Athens in 1896, along with stone throwing, in which rivals threw a 6.35kg rock, and shot put. The hammer was first seen in 1900, while the javelin appeared at the intercalated Games of 1906 and remained since.

Women could only throw the discus in 1928 - the winner, Halina Konopacka, of Poland, becoming the first female Olympics athletics champion. The javelin followed in 1932 and the shot put in 1948. With the hammer throw and the pole vault making their debuts in Sydney, the women's field programme will match the men's for the first time.

Women high jumpers were first seen at the Games in 1928, when Ethel Catherwood, of Canada, took the inaugural title, while the event also gave the Olympic Games its first black female champion, Alice Coachman, who cleared the same height, 5ft 6in, at the London Games of 1948 as local favourite Dorothy Tyler, neée Odam, but did so on her first attempt. Tyler had missed out in 1936 in a similar way, clearing the same height as Ibolya Csak, of Hungary, but then failing to match her rival in a jump-off for the gold medal.

Long jump entered the women's programme at the 1948 Games, though the event attracted little interest, the title going to the little-known Hungarian, Olga Gyamarti, in the absence of Fanny Blankers-Koen, the Flying Dutchwoman who was off winning gold medals in four other events.

It was a woman who gave track and field its first positive drugs test; Danuta Rosani, a Polish shot putter, caught for anabolic steroids in 1976.

More pleasant history was made in 1996, when women competed in the triple jump for the first time, Inessa Kravets, of Ukraine taking the inaugural title with a hop, skip and a jump of 15.33m.

ROAD EVENTS

Some of the most moving stories in Olympic history have been provided by the marathon but in 1908 the word moving applied equally to the distance of the race. The tradition had been a 26-mile race. However, for the London Games, the race was started in front of Windsor Castle so that the Royal children could get a good view of events from their bedroom window. That meant that the race would finish at a point in the stadium beyond the best view of Queen Alexandra. At Her Royal Highness's request, runners were asked to go the extra 385 yards necessary to have the race conclude in front of the Royal box. The marathon has been run with those extra yards ever since.

The first champion was 24-year-old Spiridon Louis, of Greece. Such was the excitement of the race and the fact that the local hero reached the entrance of the stadium in the lead that Prince George and Crown Prince Constantine ran the rest of the race with Louis. So modest was the winner, however, that he returned to his village the next day after receiving his prize and folklore and romance took over where reality had left off. It is yet unclear whether Louis was a shepherd, a wealthy farmer, a post messenger or a soldier, or all of those.

In 1908, the extra yards in place, the story of Dorando Pietri, of Italy, was tragic. Pietri collapsed of exhaustion after leading the race inside the stadium. In a gesture of kindness and to ensure there was no death before Her Majesty, British officials attempted to help him across the line. In doing so they ensured his disqualification and John Hayes, a store clerk at Bloomingdales in New York, was declared the winner. Hayes and Pietri later became great friends, making a goodly living from running in professional races against each other.

Emil Zatopek is one of the most famous marathon runners, while Abebe Bikila, of Ethiopia, won successive gold medals in the marathons of 1960 and 1964, first barefoot, then with his shoes on. Perhaps he needed the comfort after having undergone an appendectomy only 40 days before the race. Waldemar Cierpinski, of West Germany, was the only other man to retain the marathon title, though his second victory was in the boycotted Games of 1980.

COMBINED EVENTS

One of the finest Olympic athletes in history was Jim Thorpe, who in 1912 won both the decathlon and pentathlon. King Gustav V of Sweden referred to him as "the greatest athlete in the world". It is a title that is rather apt for many of those who have won what is arguably the toughest of Olympic events, the decathlon. They have come no finer than Daley Thompson, of Great Britain.

Introduced in 1904, the decathlon comprises 100 metres, 400 metres and 1,500 metres races, the 110m hurdles and the long jump, shot put, high jump, discus, javelin and pole vault. Thompson joked: "Nine Mickey Mouse events and a 1,500-metre." Thompson was the second man to win the title twice, the first being Bob Mathias, of the US, who was just 17 when he won the 1948 title. He set a world record for the 1952 crown. Likewise, Thompson, who finished eighteenth when he was 18 in 1976, wrote his name in the world record books on his second victory, in 1984.

Iryina Press, of the Soviet Union, won the inaugural pentathlon in 1964. In 1984, the event became the heptathlon, including 200 metres and 800 metres races, 100 metres hurdles, high jump, shot put, long jump and javelin. The most successful woman heptathlete is Jackie Joyner-Kersee, winner of the 1988 and 1992 titles.

Joyner-Kersee's return may affect the ambitions of Marion Jones, of the US, who is aiming to win an unprecedented five gold medals - in the 100m, 200m, 4 x 100 metres and 4 x 400 metres relays, and the long jump. One of the showdowns of the Games is likely to be the race between world champion Cathy Freeman, of Australia, and defending Olympic champion Marie-José Pérec, of France, in the 400 metres.

Other names to watch for are Michael Johnson, Hicham El Guerrouj, of Morocco, and Haile Gebrselassie, of Ethiopia.