Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping and throwing. It is part of the wider sport of athletics, which also encompasses road running and racewalking. Unlike most other sports, which are team based, track and field is mostly individual in nature.

The name of the event comes from where it is held: on a running track and a grass field for the jumping and throwing events. Most tracks have a standard layout with four lanes for sprinting and hurdles, plus safety zones on the sides and the center of the track. The 4 x 400-meter relay is the final event of any track and field meeting and sees teams of the best sprint endurance athletes compete to finish four laps in record time.

The most common track and field events are the sprint distances, middle- and long-distance races, hurdling, and racewalking. Jumping events include the long jump, triple jump and pole vault, while throwing events are the shot put, discus and hammer throw. Athletes can also participate in “combined events”, which combine several different running and jumping events into one. These are known as pentathlons, heptathlons and decathlons.

Almost all track and field events are timed and measured, with performance data being recorded for men’s and women separately. These records are organised by a number of record types, starting with national, then continental, and finally global or world records. National governing bodies control their country’s record lists, area associations organise their respective continental list, and the IAAF ratifies world records.

Track and field events are held at every level of competition, from high school to professional. Many countries have a high-level championship for the sport, with success at these competitions often playing a large role in gaining selection to major international tournaments such as the Olympics and Paralympic Games.

In addition to national competitions, there are various continental and regional track and field championships that take place throughout the year. Some of these include the European Indoor Athletics Championships and the Asian Athletics Championships.

When creating an event, it’s a good practice to give it a name that will help you identify it in the future. It’s also important to select a meaningful value for the event that you want to track, such as a conversion. Once you’ve set up an event, you can use it in experiments and personalization flows to track metrics for your web page, a specific metric or goal, or both. You can then view these metrics in your Results page and in the Events Explorer. If you decide that an event is no longer necessary to track, you can archive it. Archiving an event will remove it from your Event list and disable tracking of that metric, but you can re-enable any archived events as needed. To archive an event, navigate to your Event list, right-click on the event and select “Archive.”