The Olympics returned to their birthplace in 2004, with the Games awarded to Athina. In addition, the Athens Organizing Committee brought back several historic sites. The shot put for men and women was held at the Ancient Olympic stadium on the Peloponnesus, with spectators sitting on the grass on the side of the hill overlooking the stadium. It was the first known athletic competition there since the Ancient Games ended in 385 C.E. The marathon race for both men and women was held on a course very similar to the one used at the 1896 Olympics. It started in Marathon and ran to Athina, finishing in the Panhellenic Stadium used for the first Modern Olympics. The athletics competition was initially disrupted on the eve of the Olympics when Konstantinos Kedéris, 2000 men’s 200 champion, and Ekaterini Thanou, 2000 women’s 100 silver medalist, were taken to a hospital after a mysterious motorcycle crash, witnessed by nobody. There were claims of missed drug tests, and that they were avoiding the doping controls, and both withdrew from the Olympics.

The two stars of the competition were Moroccan [Hicham El Guerrouj] and Britain’s [Kelly Holmes]. El Guerrouj finally won the 1,500 metres, which he had been favored to win in 1996 and 2000. For good measure he added a second gold medal in the 5K. Holmes won the 800 and 1,500 double, her first major international victories of any sort. On the roads, Poland’s [Robert Korzeniowski] won his third consecutive 50 km. walk, by over four minutes, and then called it a career.

As always at the Olympics, the track & field athletics competition was featured during the second week of the competition. It got off with a bang. On the second day of athletics, [Usain Bolt] (JAM) won the men’s 100 metres in a shocking world record of 9.69, despite showboating over the last 20 metres of the race, his victory assured. Bolt was the star in the [National Stadium], known as the Bird’s Nest, winning the 100, 200, and helping Jamaica to the 4×100 relay victory, all in world record times. The other stars on the track were Ethiopia’s [Kenenisa Bekele] who defended his 10K gold medal and doubled in the 5 and 10K; and his countrywoman, [Tirunesh Dibaba], who also doubled in the distaff 5/10K. The field events featured one world record, set in the women’s pole vault by [Yelena Isinbayeva], her 12th consecutive world mark in the event. A leading story of the competition was the remarkable performances of the Jamaican sprinters. On the female side they swept the medals in the 100 metres, won gold and bronze in the 200, and a silver medal in the 400. The United States, usually the dominant nation in track & field, had a disappointing Olympics. They led the medal tables with seven gold and 23 medals, but on the men’s side won only four gold medals. Several of their favorites were upset, and in the field events, save for the shot put, only one American man made the finals, and they won no medals. One new event was added to the program for women, the steeplechase.

With the exception of the marathons and the road walks, track & field athletics took place at the Olympic Stadium within the Olympic Park. There were no changes to the program since the 2008 Olympic Games, with men and women competing in almost an identical program, the only differences being that men contest two walks and women only one, the high hurdles are different distances – 100 metres for women and 110 metres for men, and women compete in the multi-event heptathlon while men compete in the decathlon.

The highlight occurred on the first Saturday night of athletics competition when British fans rocked as their athletes won three gold medals within 45 minutes. [Jessica Ennis] first won the heptathlon, completing the event with her 800 metre run, followed by an upset victory by [Greg Rutherford] in the men’s long jump. The evening finished with [Mo Farah] winning the 10,000 metres followed by the deafening roar of the British crowd.

There were three world records set on what was considered a very fast track. [David Rudisha] won the 800 metres, becoming the first runner to complete the distance under 1:41. Both 4×100 relay world records were ripped asunder, by the Jamaican men and the American women. [Usain Bolt] again starred, repeating his 3-gold medals from Beijing in the 100 metres, 200 metres, and 4×100 relay. The only other individual double gold medalist was Farah, who on the final night of athletics competition, won the 5,000 metres, again before an adoring crowd.

Controversy enveloped the 2016 Olympic athletics competition as far back as late 2015. At that time a German television network released a documentary alleging systematic doping in Russia. After investigations by the IAAF, the entire Russian athletic team was suspended from international competition early in 2016. Then, only a few weeks before the Rio Olympics began, an independent report commissioned by WADA, the McLaren Report, corroborated these findings, and many Russian athletes in other sports, notably rowing, were also suspended. The IOC had to quickly rule on this report, and supported it, but allowed some individual Russian athletes to compete after they had been cleared by their federations. For the Russians track & field athletes, this would be only one competitor, female long jumper [Darya Klishina], who had lived and trained in the United States for the past few years and had been subjected to multiple drug tests.

With this negative background the biggest positive story of Rio athletics was Jamaican wunder-sprinter [Usain Bolt], who was trying to win his third consecutive sprint triple with golds in the 100 metres, 200 metres, and 4×100 metre relay. It was a quest at which he would be successful in Rio, giving him nine Olympic gold medals, equaling the Olympic record for athletics held by [Paavo Nurmi] and [Carl Lewis] (trailing the 10 of [Ray Ewry] if one includes the 1906 Olympics).

Three world records were set in Rio, two by women and one in men’s competition. Ethiopian [Almaz Ayana] shattered the women’s world mark in the 10,000 metres, Poland’s [Anita Włodarczyk] broke her own world record in the hammer throw, and South African [Wayde van Niekerk] broke [Michael Johnson]’s 17-year old mark in the men’s 400 metres.

The United States would dominate the athletics competition in Rio, winning 32 medals, 16 by the men and 16 by the women. They also led the gold medal lists, winning 13 gold, 7 by men, and 6 by women. Such was their dominance that they also had the most silver medals and bronze medals for both genders, leading the medal tables in every possible category. Since the advent of women’s Olympic competition in 1928, this had only previously been accomplished at the 1932 Olympics.