Track and field is a sport comprising various competitive athletic contests based around the activities of running, jumping and throwing. The name of the sport derives from the venue for the competitions: a stadium which features an oval running track surrounding a grass field. The throwing and jumping events generally take place within the central enclosed area.

Track and field is one of the sports which (along with road running, cross-country running and race walking) makes up the umbrella sport of athletics. It is under the banner of athletics that the two most prestigious international track and field competitions are held: the athletics competition at the Olympic Games and the IAAF World Championships in Athletics. The International Association of Athletics Federations is the international governing body for track and field.

Track and field events are generally individual sports with athletes challenging each other to decide a single victor. The racing events are won by the athlete with the fastest time, while the jumping and throwing events are won by the athlete who has achieved the greatest distance or height in the contest. The running events are categorised as sprints, middle and long-distance events, relays, and hurdling. Regular jumping events include long jump, triple jump, high jump and pole vault, while the most common throwing events are shot put, javelin, discus and hammer. There are also "combined events", such as heptathlon and decathlon, in which athletes compete in a number of the above events.

Lucimara Silvestre da Silva (born 10 July 1985 in Lucélia, São Paulo) is a Brazilian track and field athlete who competes in the heptathlon. She represented her country at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and competed at the World Championships in Athletics in 2007. Her personal best of 6076 points is the South American record for the event.

Following her first national title in 2005, da Silva emerged in 2007; she won the South American Championships with a meet record score and took the bronze medal at the 2007 Pan American Games. She repeated as the continental champion in 2009, but was stripped of the title and banned for two years after she failed a drug test for the banned substance Erythropoietin (EPO).

She began her career as a specialist in the 100 metres hurdles and horizontal jumps. She was the sprint hurdles champion and long jump runner-up at the 2002 South American Youth Championships in Athletics and went on to win the hurdles at the 2003 South American Junior Championships in Athletics, where she was also fifth in the triple jump. She took up the heptathlon in 2004 and made her breakthrough at the national level the following year, winning the Brazil championships with a personal best of 5378 points.

Blake Austin Griffin (born March 16, 1989) is an American professional basketball player for the Los Angeles Clippers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Griffin had a renowned high school career at Oklahoma Christian School, winning state titles each of his four years under his father, Tommy Griffin, who was the head coach. He played college basketball for the University of Oklahoma Sooners and was awarded numerous accolades in his second year including the Naismith College Player of the Year, Oscar Robertson Trophy and the John Wooden Award.

Griffin left college after two seasons to enter the 2009 NBA Draft where he was selected first overall by the Clippers. In his first season, he broke his left kneecap, which he injured during the final pre-season game, and underwent surgery missing the entire 2009–10 season. He made his NBA debut as a rookie the following season and was selected as an All-Star, won the 2011 NBA Slam Dunk Contest and was named the NBA Rookie of the Year. In 2011, Sports Illustrated ranked him as one of the NBA's 15 Greatest Rookies of All Time.

Me'Lisa Barber (born October 4, 1980 in Livingston, New Jersey) is an American track and field sprint athlete.

Barber won her first major international championships gold medal by running the lead leg on Team USA’s winning 4x400 m relay team at the 2003 World Outdoor Championships in Paris. placed 5th in the 2005 world championship in the 100m dash

She ran on the 2001 Team USA World University Games gold medal winning 4x400 m relay team with University of South Carolina teammates Demetria Washington, Carolyn Jackson and her twin sister Miki Barber.

She ran the opening leg in teaming with her sister Miki to set a school record of 3:33.14 at the University of South Carolina competition. Barber finished as the runners-up at the NCAA Outdoor Championships. She was named second team all-state in the 55 m in 1998 and first team all-state in the 100 m and 200 m outdoors in the same year.

Barber won her heat of the 100 meters at the 1999 USA Junior Championships, but did not make the finals.

Barber grew up in Montclair, New Jersey., and her 4x100 m and 4x400 m high school relays at Montclair High School were both honored as All-American. As a senior she was ranked 3rd on the Track & Field News list in the 100 meters. Barber was 4th on the 200 m list.

The Honourable Usain St. Leo Bolt, OJ, C.D. ( /ˈjuːseɪn/; born 21 August 1986), is a Jamaican sprinter and a five-time World and three-time Olympic gold medalist. He is the world record and Olympic record holder in the 100 metres, the 200 metres and (along with his teammates) the 4×100 metres relay. He is the reigning Olympic champion in these three events, and is one of only seven athletes (along with Valerie Adams, Veronica Campbell-Brown, Jacques Freitag, Yelena Isinbayeva, Jana Pittman, Dani Samuels) to win world championships at the youth, junior, and senior level of an athletic event.

Bolt won a 200 m gold medal at the 2002 World Junior Championships, making him the competition's youngest-ever gold medalist at the time (since surpassed by Jacko Gill). In 2004, at the CARIFTA Games, he became the first junior sprinter to run the 200 m in less than 20 seconds with a time of 19.93 s, breaking the previous world junior record held by Roy Martin by two-tenths of a second. He turned professional in 2004, and although he competed at the 2004 Summer Olympics, he missed most of the next two seasons due to injuries. In 2007, he broke Don Quarrie's 200 m Jamaican record with a run of 19.75 s.