Athletics abbreviations

In order to report that information efficiently, numerous abbreviations have grown to be common in the sport.

Track and Field News initiated adding .24 to hand times as a conversion factor.

Hand times are not accurate enough to be accepted for record purposes for short races.

Hand times involve human beings reacting, pushing the stopwatch button when they see the smoke or hear the sound of the starting pistol, then reacting (possibly anticipating) the runner crossing the finish line.

[1] But many meets displayed the converted marks accurate to the hundredth making the results look like they were taken with fully automatic timing.

Accurate to a full second, this is not significant, but in breaking microscopic ties, the data does not correspond to timing rules.

Occasionally, when breaking ties using photo finish, times are displayed to the thousandth of a second.

Each body has their own procedure for ratifying the records: for example, USA Track & Field (USATF), the governing body for the United States, only ratifies records once a year at their annual meeting at the beginning of December.

World Athletics lists bests for the Youth division and for road-racing records such as the marathon.