Athletics at the 1988 Summer Olympics

At the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul a total number of 42 events in athletics were contested: 24 by men and 18 by women. There were a total number of 1617 participating athletes from 149 countries.

Athletics at the Games of the XXIV Olympiad
Host stadium (shown in 2020)
No. of events	42
Competitors	1,617 from 149 nations
← Los Angeles 1984 Barcelona 1992 →

Medal summary

Men

Event	Gold		Silver		Bronze
100 metres details	Carl Lewis  United States	9.92 (WR)	Linford Christie  Great Britain	9.97 (AR)	Calvin Smith  United States	9.99
200 metres details	Joe DeLoach  United States	19.75 (OR)	Carl Lewis  United States	19.79	Robson da Silva  Brazil	20.04
400 metres details	Steve Lewis  United States	43.87	Butch Reynolds  United States	43.93	Danny Everett  United States	44.09
800 metres details	Paul Ereng  Kenya	1:43.45	Joaquim Cruz  Brazil	1:43.90	Saïd Aouita  Morocco	1:44.06
1500 metres details	Peter Rono  Kenya	3:35.96	Peter Elliott  Great Britain	3:36.15	Jens-Peter Herold  East Germany	3:36.21
5000 metres details	John Ngugi  Kenya	13:11.70	Dieter Baumann  West Germany	13:15.52	Hansjörg Kunze  East Germany	13:15.73
10,000 metres details	Brahim Boutayeb  Morocco	27:21.44 (OR)	Salvatore Antibo  Italy	27:23.55	Kipkemboi Kimeli  Kenya	27:25.16
110 metres hurdles details	Roger Kingdom  United States	12.98 (OR)	Colin Jackson  Great Britain	13.28	Tonie Campbell  United States	13.38
400 metres hurdles details	Andre Phillips  United States	47.19 (OR)	Amadou Dia Ba  Senegal	47.23 (NR)	Edwin Moses  United States	47.56
3000 metres steeplechase details	Julius Kariuki  Kenya	8:05.51 (OR)	Peter Koech  Kenya	8:06.79	Mark Rowland  Great Britain	8:07.96
4 × 100 metres relay details	Soviet Union (URS) Viktor Bryzhin Vladimir Krylov Vladimir Muravyov Vitaliy Savin	38.19	Great Britain (GBR) Elliot Bunney John Regis Linford Christie Mike McFarlane Clarence Callender*	38.28	France (FRA) Bruno Marie-Rose Daniel Sangouma Gilles Quenehervé Max Morinière	38.40
4 × 400 metres relay details	United States (USA) Danny Everett Steve Lewis Kevin Robinzine Butch Reynolds Antonio McKay* Andrew Valmon*	2:56.16	Jamaica (JAM) Howard Davis Devon Morris Winthrop Graham Bert Cameron Trevor Graham* Howard Burnett*	3:00.30	West Germany (FRG) Norbert Dobeleit Edgar Itt Jörg Vaihinger Ralf Lübke Mark Henrich* Bodo Kuhn*	3:00.56
Marathon details	Gelindo Bordin  Italy	2:10:32	Douglas Wakiihuri  Kenya	2:10:47	Hussein Ahmed Salah  Djibouti	2:10:59
20 kilometres walk details	Jozef Pribilinec  Czechoslovakia	1:19:57 (OR)	Ronald Weigel  East Germany	1:20:00	Maurizio Damilano  Italy	1:20:14
50 kilometres walk details	Vyacheslav Ivanenko  Soviet Union	3:38:29 (OR)	Ronald Weigel  East Germany	3:38:56	Hartwig Gauder  East Germany	3:39:45
High jump details	Hennadiy Avdyeyenko  Soviet Union	2.38 m (OR)	Hollis Conway  United States	2.36 m	Rudolf Povarnitsyn  Soviet Union	2.36 m
					Patrik Sjöberg  Sweden
Pole vault details	Sergey Bubka  Soviet Union	5.90 m (OR)	Radion Gataullin  Soviet Union	5.85 m	Grigoriy Yegorov  Soviet Union	5.80 m
Long jump details	Carl Lewis  United States	8.72 m	Mike Powell  United States	8.49 m	Larry Myricks  United States	8.27 m
Triple jump details	Khristo Markov  Bulgaria	17.61 m (OR)	Igor Lapshin  Soviet Union	17.52 m	Aleksandr Kovalenko  Soviet Union	17.42 m
Shot put details	Ulf Timmermann  East Germany	22.47 m (OR)	Randy Barnes  United States	22.39 m	Werner Günthör  Switzerland	21.99 m
Discus throw details	Jürgen Schult  East Germany	68.82 m (OR)	Romas Ubartas  Soviet Union	67.48 m	Rolf Danneberg  West Germany	67.38 m
Hammer throw details	Sergey Litvinov  Soviet Union	84.80 m (OR)	Yuriy Sedykh  Soviet Union	83.76 m	Jüri Tamm  Soviet Union	81.16 m
Javelin throw details	Tapio Korjus  Finland	84.28 m	Jan Železný  Czechoslovakia	84.12 m	Seppo Räty  Finland	83.26 m
Decathlon details	Christian Schenk  East Germany	8488	Torsten Voss  East Germany	8399	Dave Steen  Canada	8328

Women

Games	Gold		Silver		Bronze
100 metres details	Florence Griffith Joyner  United States	10.54w (OR)	Evelyn Ashford  United States	10.83w	Heike Drechsler  East Germany	10.85w
200 metres details	Florence Griffith Joyner  United States	21.34 (WR)	Grace Jackson  Jamaica	21.72	Heike Drechsler  East Germany	21.95
400 metres details	Olha Bryzhina  Soviet Union	48.65 (OR)	Petra Müller  East Germany	49.45	Olga Nazarova  Soviet Union	49.90
800 metres details	Sigrun Wodars  East Germany	1:56.10	Christine Wachtel  East Germany	1:56.64	Kim Gallagher  United States	1:56.91
1500 metres details	Paula Ivan  Romania	3:53.96 (OR)	Laimutė Baikauskaitė  Soviet Union	4:00.24	Tetyana Samolenko  Soviet Union	4:00.30
3000 metres details	Tetyana Samolenko  Soviet Union	8:26.53 (OR)	Paula Ivan  Romania	8:27.15	Yvonne Murray  Great Britain	8:29.02
10,000 metres details	Olga Bondarenko  Soviet Union	31:05.21 (OR)	Liz McColgan  Great Britain	31:08.44	Olena Zhupiyeva  Soviet Union	31:19.82
100 metres hurdles details	Yordanka Donkova  Bulgaria	12.38 (OR)	Gloria Siebert  East Germany	12.61	Claudia Zaczkiewicz  West Germany	12.75
400 metres hurdles details	Debbie Flintoff-King  Australia	53.17 (OR)	Tatyana Ledovskaya  Soviet Union	53.18	Ellen Fiedler  East Germany	53.63
4 × 100 metres relay details	United States (USA) Alice Brown Sheila Echols Florence Griffith Joyner Evelyn Ashford Dannette Young*	41.98	East Germany (GDR) Silke Möller Kerstin Behrendt Ingrid Lange Marlies Göhr	42.09	Soviet Union (URS) Lyudmila Kondratyeva Galina Malchugina Marina Zhirova Natalya Pomoshchnikova Maia Azarashvili*	42.75
4 × 400 metres relay details	Soviet Union (URS) Tatyana Ledovskaya Olga Nazarova Mariya Pinigina Olha Bryzhina Lyudmyla Dzhyhalova*	3:15.17 (WR)	United States (USA) Denean Howard Diane Dixon Valerie Brisco-Hooks Florence Griffith Joyner Sherri Howard* Lillie Leatherwood*	3:15.51 (AR)	East Germany (GDR) Dagmar Neubauer Kirsten Emmelmann Sabine Busch Petra Müller Grit Breuer*	3:18.29
Marathon details	Rosa Mota  Portugal	2:25:40	Lisa Martin-Ondieki  Australia	2:25:53	Katrin Dörre  East Germany	2:26:21
High jump details	Louise Ritter  United States	2.03 m (OR)	Stefka Kostadinova  Bulgaria	2.01 m	Tamara Bykova  Soviet Union	1.99 m
Long jump details	Jackie Joyner-Kersee  United States	7.40 m (OR)	Heike Drechsler  East Germany	7.22 m	Galina Chistyakova  Soviet Union	7.11 m
Shot put details	Natalya Lisovskaya  Soviet Union	22.24 m	Kathrin Neimke  East Germany	21.07 m	Li Meisu  China	21.06 m
Discus throw details	Martina Hellmann  East Germany	72.30 m (OR)	Diana Gansky  East Germany	71.88 m	Tsvetanka Khristova  Bulgaria	69.74 m
Javelin throw details	Petra Felke  East Germany	74.68 m (OR)	Fatima Whitbread  Great Britain	70.32 m	Beate Koch  East Germany	67.30 m
Heptathlon details	Jackie Joyner-Kersee  United States	7291 (WR)	Sabine John  East Germany	6897	Anke Behmer  East Germany	6858

• * = Athletes who ran in preliminary rounds and also received medals.

Medal table

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	United States (USA)	13	7	6	26
2	Soviet Union (URS)	10	6	10	26
3	East Germany (GDR)	6	11	10	27
4	Kenya (KEN)	4	2	1	7
5	Bulgaria (BUL)	2	1	1	4
6	Italy (ITA)	1	1	1	3
7	Australia (AUS)	1	1	0	2
	Czechoslovakia (TCH)	1	1	0	2
	Romania (ROM)	1	1	0	2
10	Finland (FIN)	1	0	1	2
	Morocco (MAR)	1	0	1	2
12	Portugal (POR)	1	0	0	1
13	Great Britain (GBR)	0	6	2	8
14	Jamaica (JAM)	0	2	0	2
15	West Germany (FRG)	0	1	3	4
16	Brazil (BRA)	0	1	1	2
17	Senegal (SEN)	0	1	0	1
18	Canada (CAN)	0	0	1	1
	China (CHN)	0	0	1	1
	Djibouti (DJI)	0	0	1	1
	France (FRA)	0	0	1	1
	Sweden (SWE)	0	0	1	1
	Switzerland (SUI)	0	0	1	1
Totals (23 entries)		42	42	43	127

See also

• 1988 in athletics (track and field)