Athletics at the Olympics: Dates, events, venues, prize money, history and Team GB prospects

Everything you need to know about Athletics at Olympics in Paris.

Olympic Athletics Dates

When does Athletics take place at the Olympics in 2024?

Athletics at the Summer Olympics in Paris is scheduled to take place between Thursday 1st August and Sunday 11th August.

Olympics Athletics Events

There will be almost 2,000 competitors taking part in the 2024 athletics programme in 48 events on the track, road and field.

Olympic Athletics Track Events:

Men and women compete in each of the following disciplines.

• Sprints
• Sprint Relays
• Hurdles
• Middle Distance
• Long Distance
• Steeplechase

The women race over 100m in the sprint hurdles, the men 110m. There is also a mixed 4x400m relay with two men and two women representing each team.

Olympic Athletics Field Events:

Men and women compete in each of the following disciplines.

• High Jump
• Long Jump
• Triple Jump
• Pole Vault
• Javelin
• Discus
• Shot Put
• Hammer Throw

Olympic Athletics Combined Events:

• Decathlon
• Heptathlon

Men compete in the ten-event decathlon, women the seven-event heptathlon. Both disciplines are a mix of track and field events.

Olympic Athletics Road Events:

• Walks
• Marathon

Men and women compete in their own marathon and 20km walk.

The longer men's 50km walk has been replaced by a mixed marathon walk with one man and one woman representing each team.

Olympic Athletics Venues

The 80,000-capacity Stade de France in the north of Paris will host the track and field events at the 2024 Olympics.

The marathon races will run from the Hotel de Ville and end at Les Invalides, two Parisian landmarks.

Pont d'Iena, the bridge which links the Trocadero with the Eiffel Tower, will take centre stage for the walks.

Olympic Athletics History

When was Athletics introduced to the Olympics?

Athletics has been part of the Olympic schedule since the first modern Games in Athens in 1896.

There were 12 events with the first-ever competitive running of the marathon.

Olympic Athletics Prize Money

World Athletics announced earlier this year that for the first time in Olympic history, competitors will have the added incentive of winning prize money as well as gold medals.

A prize fund of around £2m has been ring-fenced with the gold-medal winners in the 48 different events set to earn just under £40,000 each.

Olympic Athletics British Hopes

Who are Team GB's best medal hopes in Athletics at Paris 2024?

Team GB won five medals in Tokyo 2020 with two of those medallists among the favourites to land gold in Paris.

Keely Hodgkinson expects to improve on her 800m silver medal from Japan in Paris while Josh Kerr, the new British mile record holder, also believes he can turn bronze into gold in the 1500m.

Matthew Hudson-Smith has set a new European best for 400m this year and is full of confidence while Zharnell Hughes will be looking to improve on his world 100m bronze.

Jake Whiteman and Neil Gourley are genuine medal hopefuls alongside Kerr in the 1500m, while sprint queens Dina Asher-Smith and Daryll Neita will hope to be in the medal mix.

There is also a fascinating two-pronged attack on the women's pole vault courtesy of Tokyo medallist Holly Bradshaw and current world indoor champion Molly Caudery.

Who were the most recent British Olympic Athletics gold medallists?

You have to go back to 2016 for the last British medals courtesy of long-distance legend Mo Farah, who triumphed in both the 5000m and 10,000m.

That was a repeat of his double in 2012 in London when long-jumper Greg Rutherford and heptathlete Jessica Ennis also struck gold.

Team GB's Olympic Athletics Record

How many medals have Team GB captured in Olympic Athletics history?

Total GB medal tallyGreat Britain have won 210 medals in modern Olympic Games history - only the United States has won more.

Team GB has won 55 golds - third behind the US (344) and former Soviet Union (64) - 82 silvers and 72 bronzes.

Olympic Athletics Favourites

Who are the favourites to win Athletics golds in Paris 2024?

British trio Keely Hodgkinson (women's 800m), Josh Kerr (men's 1500m) and Molly Caudery (women's pole vault) will be among the clear favourites in their events.

Other big-name stars who would expect to win gold are American sprinters Sha'Carri Richardson and Noah Lyles, Kenyan distance star Faith Kipyegon and pole vault supremo Armand Duplantis.

Women's discus star Yaime Perez has thrown further than anyone in over 30 years while American hammer thrower Brooke Anderson is the only competitor to launch over 80 metres in 2024.