Athletics at the Summer Olympics

Athletics, known as Track and Field in the United States, has been contested at every Summer Olympics since the birth of the modern Olympic movement at the 1896 Summer Olympics.

Men's events

No new events have been added to the men's athletics programme since 1952 when the short racewalk was added. The roster of events has not changed since then, with the exception of the omission of the long racewalk in 1976. The long racewalk is the only event held for men but not included on the women's programme.

A total of 52 different events have been held in the men's competition. The current list has 24 events.

Many of the discontinued events were similar to modern ones but at different lengths, especially in the steeplechasing, hurdling, and racewalking disciplines.

Team racing events were only run in the six early editions of the Games.

The athletic multi-discipline triathlon (3 events) and pentathlon (5 events) have been replaced by the 10 event decathlon, and the medley relay replaced by relay races where each section is the same length as the others.

Standing jump competitions are no longer held, nor are the various modified throwing events which were experimented with in 1908 and 1912.