How a sprint works

Athletics has many events; the sprints are the place to start.

1. The sprints are the 100 m, 200 m and 400 m. Each athlete runs the whole race in their own lane.
2. They start crouched in starting blocks. On "On your marks" they settle behind the line, on "Set" they rise and hold still, and the gun starts the race.
3. Moving before the gun is a false start, and it means disqualification at once. There is no first warning.
4. The first athlete to get their torso to the finish line wins. A photo finish decides close races, and times are given to a hundredth of a second.

How long

A 100 m race is over in seconds. When there are too many athletes for one race, the event runs in rounds of heats: the first few in each go through, with the fastest of the rest.