<P> Meanwhile, the United States began holding an annual national competition--the USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships--first held in 1876 by the New York Athletic Club . The establishment of general sports governing bodies for the United States (the Amateur Athletic Union in 1888) and France (the Union des sociétés françaises de sports athlétiques in 1889) put the sport on a formal footing and meant that international competitions became possible . </P> <P> The establishment of the modern Olympic Games at the end of the 19th century marked a new high for track and field . The Olympic athletics programme, comprising track and field events plus a marathon race, contained many of the foremost sporting competitions of the 1896 Summer Olympics . The Olympics also consolidated the use of metric measurements in international track and field events, both for race distances and for measuring jumps and throws . The Olympic athletics programme greatly expanded over the next decades, and track and field contests remained among the Games' most prominent . The Olympics was the elite competition for track and field, and only amateur sportsmen could compete . Track and field continued to be a largely amateur sport, as this rule was strictly enforced: Jim Thorpe was stripped of his track and field medals from the 1912 Olympics after it was revealed that he had taken expense money for playing baseball, violating Olympic amateurism rules, before the 1912 Games . His medals were reinstated 29 years after his death . </P> <P> That same year, the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) was established, becoming the international governing body for track and field, and it enshrined amateurism as one of its founding principles for the sport . The National Collegiate Athletic Association held their first Men's Outdoor Track and Field Championship in 1921, making it one of the most prestigious competitions for students, and this was soon followed by the introduction of track and field at the inaugural World Student Games in 1923 . The first continental track and field competition was the 1919 South American Championships, which was followed by the European Athletics Championships in 1934 . </P> <P> Up until the early 1920s, track and field had been almost exclusively a male - only pursuit . Alice Milliat argued for the inclusion of women at the Olympics, but the International Olympic Committee refused . She founded the International Women's Sports Federation in 1921 and, alongside a growing women's sports movement in Europe and North America, the group initiated of the Women's Olympiad (held annually from 1921 to 1923). Working in conjunction with the English Women's Amateur Athletic Association (WAAA), the Women's World Games was held four times between 1922 and 1934, as well as a Women's International and British Games in London in 1924 . These events ultimately led to the introduction of five track and field events for women in the athletics at the 1928 Summer Olympics . In China, women's track and field events were being held in the 1920s, but were subject to criticism and disrespect from audiences . National women's events were established in this period, with 1923 seeing the First British Track & Field championships for women and the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) sponsoring the First American Track & Field championships for women . Also in 1923, physical education advocate Zhang Ruizhen called for greater equality and participation of women in Chinese track and field . The rise of Kinue Hitomi and her 1928 Olympic medal for Japan signified the growth of women's track and field in East Asia . More women's events were gradually introduced as years progressed (although it was only towards the end of the century that the men's and women's programmes approached parity of events). Marking an increasingly inclusive approach to the sport, major track and field competitions for disabled athletes were first introduced at the 1960 Summer Paralympics . </P>

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