Nine nations reached the medal table, with eight of them having an athlete top the podium. Italy was dominant, taking eleven gold medals and 38 overall. France was a clear second with nine golds from a haul of 25 medals. Algeria won the next highest number of golds (five), while Spain had the third largest overall medals with thirteen. Morocco also performed well (four golds and twelve in total) as did the host nation Greece (three golds and eleven overall).[1] A total of 22 games records were broken in Athens – this was over half of the event programme and only five field event records were unbeaten by the end of the tournament.[2]
† Excludes Yasmina Azzizi's gold in the heptathlon, as this was an exhibition event only.
Participation
Fifteen of the eighteen nations present at the 1991 edition of the games entered athletes into the athletics competition. Lebanon, Libya and Malta did not send any track and field athletes.[1]