When Athletes are running a circuit, those on the inside tracks have to run less far than those on the outside. In order to ensure that everyone runs the same distance, the start is staggered, so that those on the inside appear to start much further back than those on the outside. It is not until the final straight that it is really possible to see who is winning. Longer races often start from a simple curved line. Athletes break out of their lanes quite quickly and each runs as close to the inside of the track as possible.
If they all started from the same line, then the athletes in the outer lanes would have to run further than the athletes in the inner lanes, because of the semicircles at the top and bottom of the track.
So each lane has to have a special starting position so they all have to run the same distance.
In every Olympic event, officials try to keep things is as fair as possible. In track, this means making sure runners cover the same distance. Short distances make this easy—simply paint a perpendicular line across the track to denote the starting and finishing points. This works quite nicely for the 100 meter race.
But what if the distance is longer than 100 meters? Of course, officials could use a longer track, creating, say, a 400 meter track for the 400 meter hurdles. But with longer distances, it starts getting difficult for spectators to see all the action. Instead, the answer is a curved track. Modern track and field tracks typically are an oval.
This presents a problem. If you run around the entire track, an inner lane is a shorter distance than an outer lane. The solution to this is to make the athletes start at different points on the track.
Picture Credit : Google
