Athletics in Tokyo 2021 Olympics

The Tokyo 2020 Olympics were postponed by one year to 2021 due to the global covid-19 pandemic. Athletics is competed during nine days in Tokyo between Friday the 30th of July and Sunday the 8th of August 2021.

The athetics competitions start off with the stadium events and are wrapped up with men´s marathon on the 8th of August.

Athletics schedule & timetable for the Tokyo Olympics 2021

Below is the daily timetable for the Tokyo 2021 Olympics athletics. Note that all the times are in CET (UTC+2).

You can open a daily program by clicking the navy blue header or the plus sign of a certain day in the timetable. You can close the opened daily timetable by clicking the header or the minus sign.

Athletics entry standards for the Tokyo 2021 Olympics

The athletes qualify for the Tokyo 2021 Olympics thrtough entry standards and athlete rankings. All the athletes who reach the entry standards will automatically qualify for the Olympics. If the maximum athlete quota for each discipline is not filled by athletes passing through the entry standards the rest of the athletes will qualify through olympic rankings.

Note: Rankings are not based on the best results during the qualification period. The result plays the main role but also the event status is crucial. For example, the same result in the Diamond League event is much valuable than in Continental Tour events.

Teams & athletes

We will update all entries during this week. Below you will find Great Britain and USA athletics teams.

• Great Britain

• USA

Athletics results in the Tokyo 2021 Olympics

• Saturday 31.17. Startlists & results

• Sunday 1.8. Startlists & Results

• Tuesday 3.8. Results

• Wednesday 4.8. Results

• Thursday 5.8. Startlists & Results

• Friday 6.8. Startlists & Results

• Saturday 7.8. Startlists & Results

Athletics in Summer Olympics – Statistics

The most successful athlete in athletics in the Olympic Games is the Paavo Nurmi also known as the Flying Finn. Nurmi won a total of 12 gold medals in the Olympics in 1920, 1924 and 1928. Nurmi also won three silver medals during his olympic careet.

Nurmi won three gold medals in Antwerp 1920 (10000 m, individual & team cross country). In Paris 1924 he was unstoppable collecting ashtonising five golds (1500 m, 5000 m, 3000 m team, individual & team cross country). Nurmi rounded up his gold medal streak in Amsterdam in 1928 where he won gold in 10000 meters.

Athletics olympic records

Athletics olympic record's have been developing steadily during the years. Eight new olympic records were made in the latest olympic games in Rio de Janeiro 2016. The development has been more rapid lately in the men's event as most of the men's olempic records have been achieved during the 2000's.

On the women's side however a lot of the olympic records made in the 1980's still stand today. Ten of the current women's olympic records have been made in the 80's. The oldest women's records (800 m and shot put) are from the Moscow 1980 games. Some new additions to the women's record list have though been made as three of the women's olympic records were broken in Rio 2016.

Six of women's current olympic records (100m 200m, 10000m, Heptahtlon and the relays) also stand as current athletics world records.



Most of men's athletics olympic records have been shattered during the 2000's. Only three of the current men's olympic records are from the 1900's. The oldest (men's and overall) athletics olympic record is Bob Beamon's giant leap of 890 in the long jump competition Mexico back in 1968.

A total of five men's athletics olympic records were broken in Rio de Janeiro games in 2016. Four of men's current olympic records (400m, 800m, 400m hurdles and 4x100m relay) also stand as current world records.