Hicham El Guerrouj is a retired Moroccan middle-distance runner. El Guerrouj is the current world record holder of the outdoor 1500 metres, mile, and 2000 metres events. He also held indoor world records for the mile and 1500 metres until 2019, and is the only man since Paavo Nurmi to earn a gold medal in both the 1500 metres and 5000 metres at the same Olympic Games. El Guerrouj is widely regarded as the greatest middle-distance runner in history and is also viewed as one of the greatest athletes of all time.
Merlene Joyce Ottey is a Jamaican-Slovenian former track and field sprinter. She began her career representing Jamaica in 1978, and continued to do so for 24 years, before representing Slovenia from 2002 to 2012. She is ranked fourth on the all-time list over 60 metres (indoor), eighth on the all-time list over 100 metres and sixth on the all-time list over 200 metres. She is the current world indoor record holder for 200 metres with 21.87 seconds, set in 1993. She was named Jamaican Sportswoman of the Year 13 times between 1979 and 1995.
Liu Xiang is a Chinese former 110 meter hurdler. Liu is an Olympic Gold medalist and World Champion. His 2004 Olympic gold medal was the first in a men's track and field event for China.
Jamaica competed at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece, from 13 to 29 August 2004. This was the nation's fourteenth appearance at the Summer Olympics as an independent nation, although it had previously appeared in the first four editions as a British colony, and as part of the West Indies Federation. The Jamaica Olympic Association sent a total of 47 athletes to the Games, 22 men and 25 women, to compete only in track and field, badminton, shooting, and swimming. For the second consecutive time in Olympic history, Jamaica was represented again by more female than male athletes.
Muriel Hurtis-Houairi is a French track and field athlete. She came to prominence in 2002 when she won the 200 m gold medals at both the European Indoor Championships and the European Athletics Championships. The following year she added the World Indoor title and won a bronze medal at the 2003 World Championships in Athletics and a gold in the 4×100 metres relay with France.
Ivet Miroslavova Lalova-Collio is a Bulgarian athlete who specialises in the 100 metres and 200 metres sprint events. She is the 13th-fastest woman in the history of the 100 metres. She finished fourth in the 100 metres and fifth in the 200 metres at the 2004 Summer Olympics. Her career was interrupted for two years between June 2005 and May 2007 due to a leg injury sustained in a collision with another athlete. In June 2012 she won gold at the 2012 European Athletics Championships in the Women's 100 metres. In July 2016 she won two silver medals at the 2016 European Athletics Championships in both the Women's 100 and 200 metres. She has participated at five editions of the Olympic Games.
Andrew James Baddeley on The Wirral, Merseyside is an English middle-distance runner.
Abraham Chepkirwok is an Ugandan middle-distance runner who specializes in the 800 metres. He is the Ugandan record holder in this distance, with 1:43.72 minutes, achieved in July 2008 in Madrid. He is a World Junior Championships bronze medalist from 2006 and Olympic competitor from 2008.
John Bryan Bronson is an American 400-meter hurdler, who won the bronze medal at the 1997 World Championships in Athens. He also represented his country at the 1996 Summer Olympics. He won three consecutive titles at the USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships from 1996 to 1998.
Coby Miller is an American track and field athlete, who specialises in the sprint events. In his career, he recorded a sub-10 second personal best in the 100 meters and a sub-20 second best in the 200 meters. In the latter distance, he won the 1999 Summer Universiade and reached the 2000 Sydney Olympics final. He suffered leg injuries in the 2001 and 2002 seasons, but returned in late 2002 as part of the gold-medal-winning American 4 x 100 m relay team at the IAAF World Cup, breaking the championship record. He ran under ten seconds in the 100 m Olympics Trials in 2004, but failed to qualify for the event. However, he won an Olympic silver medal at the 2004 Athens Games as part of the American 4 x 100 m relay team. At his peak he was regularly ranked among the top ten American sprinters.
The 2002 IAAF Grand Prix Final was the eighteenth edition of the season-ending competition for the IAAF Grand Prix track and field circuit, organised by the International Association of Athletics Federations. It was held on 14 September at the Stade Sébastien Charléty in Paris, France. Paris became the third city to host the event for a second time, following Rome and Fontvieille.
The 1995 IAAF Grand Prix Final was the eleventh edition of the season-ending competition for the IAAF Grand Prix track and field circuit, organised by the International Association of Athletics Federations. It was held on 9 September at the Stade Louis II in Fontvieille, Monaco.
Mohammad Mutlak Khalif Al-Azemi is a Kuwaiti middle distance runner who specialises in the 800 metres. His 800 m personal bests of 1:44.13 minutes outdoors and 1:48.93 minutes indoors are the Kuwaiti records for the event. He represented his nation at the Olympic Games in 2004, 2008 and 2012, and has also made four appearances at the World Championships in Athletics.
The 1998 IAAF Golden League was the first edition of the annual international track and field meeting series, held from 9 July to 5 September. It was contested at six European meetings: the Bislett Games, Golden Gala, Herculis, Weltklasse Zürich, Memorial Van Damme and the Internationales Stadionfest (ISTAF). The series tied in with the 1998 IAAF Grand Prix Final, with the jackpot of US$1,000,000 being decided at that competition. The million-dollar prize represented the single largest prize pot ever in athletics at that point.
The 100 metres at the Summer Olympics has been contested since the first edition of the multi-sport event. The men's 100 metres has been present on the Olympic athletics programme since 1896. The 100 metres is considered one of the blue ribbon events of the Olympics and is among the highest profile competitions at the games. It is the most prestigious 100 metres race at elite level and is the shortest sprinting competition at the Olympics – a position it has held at every edition except for a brief period between 1900 and 1904, when a men's 60 metres was contested.
The 1987 IAAF Grand Prix Final was the third edition of the season-ending competition for the IAAF Grand Prix track and field circuit, organised by the International Association of Athletics Federations. It was held on 11 September at the King Baudouin Stadium in Brussels, Belgium. Tonie Campbell and Merlene Ottey were the overall points winners of the tournament.
The 1988 IAAF Grand Prix Final was the fourth edition of the season-ending competition for the IAAF Grand Prix track and field circuit, organised by the International Association of Athletics Federations. It was held on 13 September at the Olympiastadion in West Berlin. Saïd Aouita and Paula Ivan were the overall points winners of the tournament, with this being Aouita's second win at the completion following his 1986 victory.
The 1989 IAAF Grand Prix Final was the fifth edition of the season-ending competition for the IAAF Grand Prix track and field circuit, organised by the International Association of Athletics Federations. It was held on 1 September at the Stade Louis II in Fontvieille, Monaco. Saïd Aouita and Paula Ivan were the overall points winners of the tournament, both repeating their victories from the previous year's competition. Ivan became the first woman to win the series twice. This was also Aouita's third career win at the completion – a feat which never went matched in the event's history.
Jacqueline "Jackie" Pusey is a Jamaican former track and field sprinter. She competed over distances from 100 metres to 400 metres. She represented Jamaica at the 1976 Summer Olympics and competed a second time at the 1980 Summer Olympics.
The Helsinki Grand Prix was an annual one-day outdoor track and field meeting held at the Helsinki Olympic Stadium in Helsinki, Finland. Established in 1959, it was originally organised by a local athletics club, Helsingin Kisa-Veikot (HKV). It continued in this format, with Apu magazine a key sponsor, for nearly three decades. In 1987, HKV came to an agreement where the Finnish Amateur Athletic Association took on the operating costs of the competition. The Finnish Association ceased this arrangement in 1992, causing the cancellation of the 1993 meeting due to financial difficulties.
Leroy Burrell (USA)
William Tanui (KEN)
Réda Abdenouz (ALG)
Jens-Peter Herold (GDR)
Peter Elliott (GBR)
Brahim Boutayeb (MAR)
Samuel Matete (ZAM)
Winthrop Graham (JAM)
Sergey Malchenko (URS)
Georgi Dakov (BUL)
Javier Sotomayor (CUB)
Marios Hadjiandreou (CYP)
Georg Andersen (NOR)
Tibor Gécsek (HUN)
Tore Gustafsson (SWE)
Fatima Yusuf (NGR)
Pauline Davis (BAH)
Sandra Gasser (SUI)
Nadia Dandolo (ITA)
Viorica Ghican (ROM)
Monique Éwanjé-Épée (FRA)
Brigitte Graune (FRG)