Unit 7 · Time, Water, a Line

Olympia was a holy place in southern Greece. Greeks held games there to honor the god Zeus. By tradition, the first games took place in 776 BCE. Later Greek writers counted from that year.

The first race was one length of the stadium. That word comes from the Greek stade, a measure of length. At Olympia, the track was a straight strip of packed earth about 192 meters long. Runners raced from one end to the other.

The Greek writer Pausanias visited Olympia in the 100s CE. He wrote that the footrace was the only event at the first games. He named the winner as Coroebus of Elis. Historians treat these early lists as tradition, not as exact records.

The ancient games had strict rules about who could enter. Athletes had to be free Greek men or boys. Enslaved people could not compete. People who were not Greek were also shut out.

Married women were not allowed to watch the men’s games. Pausanias wrote that girls held their own footraces at Olympia. These were the Heraia, games honoring the goddess Hera. The girls ran a track shorter than the men’s stade.

The modern Olympics began in Athens in 1896. Women did not run track events at the Olympics until 1928, in Amsterdam. That year, women raced the 100 meters and the 800 meters for the first time.

In the 1800s, British and American runners measured races in yards and miles. Many tracks were one quarter of a mile around. That lap is 440 yards. Four laps made one mile.

France created the meter in the 1790s as a new measure. Most of Europe later used it for races. The modern Olympics measured track races in meters from 1896 on. A 440-yard lap is about 402 meters, a little longer than 400.

Two measures made trouble. A time for 440 yards could not sit on the same list as a time for 400 meters. Over the 1900s, most American high school and college tracks switched to meters. Today the outdoor lap is 400 meters in almost every country.

In 1912, leaders from many countries met in Stockholm, Sweden. They formed the International Amateur Athletic Federation, or IAAF. Its job was to write one set of track rules. It also kept the list of official world records.

The IAAF renamed itself World Athletics in 2019. Its rule book says a standard outdoor track is 400 meters in the inside lane. Each lane may be up to 1.22 meters wide. Most standard tracks have eight lanes.

School tracks in the United States follow a rule book from the National Federation of State High School Associations, or NFHS. The IHSA uses NFHS rules for Illinois meets. Those rules also measure races in meters.

A track has two straight sides and two curves. On a curve, an outer lane makes a bigger circle than an inner lane. If everyone started on one line, the outside runner would run farther.

So officials paint a stagger. That is a set of starting marks that step forward, lane by lane. The runner in lane eight starts farthest ahead. Each runner still covers exactly the same distance.

In races on one straight, like the 100 meters, everyone starts on the same line. Staggers matter only when the race runs around a curve. The finish line is one straight line across all lanes.

Early tracks were packed dirt or grass. Later, many were covered with cinders. Cinders are crushed leftovers from burned coal. Rain turned them soft, and runners’ spikes dug deep holes.

In the 1960s, companies made new track surfaces from rubber and plastic. These are called synthetic tracks. They drain rain and stay the same in all weather. The 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City were the first to use one.

Before blocks, sprinters dug small holes in cinders to push from at the start. Starting blocks are metal frames that replaced those holes. They came into wide use in the 1930s and 1940s. Today, rule books require blocks for short races at big meets.

At first, a race only showed who finished first. A stopwatch changed that. It is a watch that starts and stops when a button is pressed. Now each race could leave behind a number.

At early meets, a timer stood at the finish with a stopwatch. Several timers often clocked the same runner. Early watches measured to a fifth of a second. Later ones measured to a tenth.

Hand timing has a problem. People press the button a little late or early. So a time from one timer may not match another. Record keepers needed a clock that did not depend on a human thumb.

Sometimes two runners reach the line together. The eye cannot tell who was first. A photo finish camera solves this. It points straight along the finish line and takes a picture of the moment runners cross.

Photo-finish cameras spread at big meets in the 1900s. They were joined to electronic clocks. The start signal starts the clock by itself. The camera shows the exact time each runner reaches the line.

This is called fully automatic timing. It measures to the hundredth of a second. From 1977, the IAAF accepted world records in short races only if they were timed this way.

The Illinois High School Association, or IHSA, was founded in 1900. It runs state tournaments for Illinois high schools. Yet its track records begin earlier. They list state champions from 1893.

Those first meets were held before the IHSA existed. When the IHSA formed, it kept the older results in its records. So Illinois track has one of the longest state title lists in the IHSA’s books.

IHSA record books list each year’s team champions and event winners. A school in Cairo and a school in Rockford can see the same list. Because both run on 400-meter tracks with the same timing rules, their times can be compared fairly.

At the first modern Olympics in Athens in 1896, swimmers raced in the sea. The races were held in a bay near the port of Piraeus. The water was cold and rough. There were no walls and no lanes.

At the 1900 Paris Games, swimmers raced in the river Seine. The river’s current pushed them along. That made times faster than in still water. Those times could not be compared with times from other places.

For the 1908 London Games, a pool was built inside the main stadium. It was 100 meters long. For the first time, Olympic swimmers raced in a still, measured tank. Later Games used built pools every time.

In 1908, swimming leaders from several countries met in London. They formed FINA, a world body for swimming. It wrote rules and kept world records. In 2022, FINA renamed itself World Aquatics.

Today the Olympics use a 50-meter pool. Swimmers call this long course. A 25-meter pool is called short course. World Aquatics keeps a separate record list for each length.

Many U.S. high school pools are 25 yards long. That is shorter than 25 meters. So a time from a yard pool cannot be compared straight to a time from a meter pool. Swim records always say which pool was used.

A lane line is a rope strung with floats. It runs from one end wall to the other. It marks where one swimmer’s lane ends and the next begins. Rule books set how many lanes a race pool has.

Early lane lines were simple ropes with cork floats. Later designs used plastic discs that spin in the water. These discs break up waves. So a swimmer in one lane is less bothered by splashing next door.

Rule books also call for a dark line on the floor down each lane. At each end, a touchpad can sit on the wall. When a swimmer touches it, the clock stops. This is how pools use automatic timing.

In France in the Middle Ages, people played a ball game called jeu de paume. The name means game of the palm. At first, players hit the ball with their hands. Later they used rackets.

The game moved into large walled rooms. In English it became known as tennis. Today it is called real tennis, to tell it apart from lawn tennis. King Henry VIII had a court built at Hampton Court Palace near London.

Real tennis courts were costly. Mostly kings, nobles and rich men played. Each court was a bit different in size and shape. That made it hard to set one plan everyone could share.

Walter Clopton Wingfield was a British army officer. In 1873 he introduced an outdoor game for lawns. In 1874 he took out a patent on it. He gave it a Greek name, Sphairistikè, meaning ball game.

Wingfield sold the game in a box. It held rackets, balls, a net, poles and a printed rule book. Buyers marked out the court on their own grass. His court was wider at the ends and narrow at the net, like an hourglass.

The boxed set sold well in Britain and beyond. Lawn tennis spread to gardens, clubs and parks. Players soon changed his rules and his court shape. But his box helped many people start playing the same game.

The All England Croquet Club was in Wimbledon, near London. In 1875 it added lawn tennis. In 1877 it held a lawn tennis championship. This was the first Wimbledon.

For that event, the club wrote its own rules. It dropped the hourglass shape. The singles court became a rectangle 78 feet long and 27 feet wide. That shape is still used today.

Twenty-two men entered the first championship. Spencer Gore won. Women were not included at first. Wimbledon added a women’s singles event in 1884, and Maud Watson won it.

A state swim meet needs pools that are the same length. It also needs rules for timing and lanes. The IHSA held its first boys state swimming and diving meet in 1932.

For more than 40 years, only boys had a state swim meet in Illinois. Girls’ swimming and diving got its own IHSA state series in 1975. Many girls had swum before then, but they had no state title to race for.

School pools are costly to build, heat and staff. Some Illinois schools have no pool at all. Their swimmers may practice in a park district pool or join a team from a nearby school.

Tennis is one of the oldest IHSA state series. The first boys tennis champion was crowned in 1912. That was 35 years after the first Wimbledon. School courts used the same rectangle as the 1877 rules.

Girls tennis waited 60 more years. The IHSA held its first girls tennis state series in 1972. That same year, Congress passed Title IX. This federal law says schools that get U.S. money cannot shut people out because of sex.

IHSA tennis and swimming records list each year’s champions. Reading down the list shows who could play, and when. The empty years before 1972 and 1975 are part of that history too.