Paris 2024 Olympics: history, events, Olympic venue... athletics and para-athletics at the Games

Athletics and marathon running, king disciplines at the Olympic Games... And the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games are no exception to the rule! Combining throws, jumps, runs... athletics is also the discipline of all records, with great champions who have the history of their performance. Find out everything there is to know about these disciplines for the Games!

The Paris 2024 Olympics without athletics is something unthinkable... Athletics is one of the key disciplines at every Olympic Games : comprising 5 sports categories, it includes over a dozen specialities, classified into families (throws, jumps, runs, race walking and combined events). From pentathlon to marathon, shot put to hurdling, race walking to pole vaulting: discover the events of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games!

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Athletics has been practised sinceancient times: in fact, champions in the discipline can be found as far back as 776 BC, at the Ancient Olympic Games! Over the centuries, certain disciplines have survived, such as discus throwing, long jump, javelin throwing, etc. The first athletics competitions were held in England in the 1840s. Since then, and from the 1880s onwards, more and more championships have been held in the country, and exported to Europe and the USA. World Athletics, the international athletics federation, was founded in 1912: today, athletics is the individual sport with the highest number of participants in the Olympic Games.

Ever since the first modern Olympic Games in Athens in 1896, athletics has been considered the "king sport" of the summer Olympics, which explains its growing popularity over the years. Gradually, various events were added to the already extensive program: the men's 20 km walk (in 1956) and a host of events in the women's program, which numbered just 17 until 1992! It should also be pointed out that women's athletes were not allowed to take part in the events until 1928, whereas the first modern Games were held in 1896.

Events at the Paris 2024 Olympics:

100 m
200 m
400 m
800 m
1 500 m
5 000 m
10 000 m
400 m hurdles
3,000 m steeplechase
4 x 100 m relay
4 x 400 m relay
High jump
Pole vault
Long jump
Triple jump
Shot put
Discus throw
Hammer throw
Javelin throw
Decathlon (men only)
Heptathlon (women only)
110 m hurdles (men only)
100 m hurdles (women only)
20 km walk (women/men)
Mixed relay marathon walk
Marathon

Events at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games:

Discus throw
Shot put
Long jump
Javelin throw
Club throw
100 m
400 m
200 m
800 m
1 500 m
5 000 m
Marathon

The events will take place at various Olympic venues: the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, for all the track events, theHôtel de Ville, from which the start of the marathon events will be fired, and the Pont d'Iéna, from which the 20 km walking events will start.

JO 2024 : règles, histoire, joueurs célèbres...tout ce qu'il faut savoir sur le rugby à 7 — © Paris 2024

Records

Among the most illustrious records, those for the 100 m and 200 m sprint were set by the famous Jamaican Usain Bolt (in 9s 63 and 19s 30), while the marathon record of 2h06 was set by Kenyan Samuel Wanjiru.

On the women's side, the women's 100 m was won by Jamaica's Elaine Thompson-Herah (dethroning Shelly-Ann Fraser Price and her numerous records) in 10s61, and the 200 m by American Florence Griffith-Joyner in 21s 34. The women's 400 m world record has been held by a Frenchwoman, Marie-José Perec, since the 1996 Games: in fact, it's the only French Olympic record in any discipline!