Athletics at the 1997 West Asian Games

Athletics
at the 1997 West Asian Games
Athletics ; at the 1997 West Asian Games
Venue	Azadi Stadium
	2002 →

At the 1997 West Asian Games. the athletics events were held in Tehran, Iran in November 1997. It had a men's only programme containing twenty-two track and field events. All performances were affected by the altitude of the host city (3900 ft/1189 m).

The host nation dominated the proceedings, winning half of the gold medals on offer (11) and more than half of the total medals with its haul of 38 medals. Kuwait was a comfortable second with eight golds among its fifteen medals, while Jordan was a distant third with one gold in its total of five medals. Seven nations reached the medal table in the athletics competition.

The competition was of a relatively low standard for an international athletics meet. Virtually all the performances were closer to the level expected in elite women's competitions. Among the better performers were Maksim Smetanin, a 1996 Olympian from Kyrgyzstan who won the triple jump with 15.90 metres. Two young athletes in the throws discus thrower Abbas Samimi (aged 20), sprinter Fawzi Al-Shammari (aged 18) and hammer thrower Dilshod Nazarov (aged 15) secured their first major medals at an international meeting – all went on to claim multiple medals at the Asian Games and Asian Athletics Championships later in their careers.

Medalists[]

Event	Gold		Silver		Bronze
100 m		10.83	Iran	10.87	Fawzi Al-Shammari	11.05
200 m		21.34		21.37	Iran	22.05
400 m		46.51	Fawzi Al-Shammari	48.17	Mehdi Jelodarzadeh Iran	49.07
800 m	Iran	1:54.40	Boris Kaveshnikov	1:54.73	Mehdi Jelodarzadeh Iran	1:55.58
1500 m	Iran	3:57.74	Iran	3:58.24	Iran	4:14.33
5000 m	Iran	14:39.04	Awad Al-Hasini	14:43.94	Iran	14:45.57
10,000 m	Iran	30:32.38	Awad Al-Hasini	30:56.80	Iran	31:15.01
110 m hurdles		14.42	Zeyad Abdulrazak	14.70	Iran	14.92
400 m hurdles	Iran	52.53	Iran	53.49		54.35
3000 m steeplechase	Iran	9:12.10	Iran	9:12.17	Iran	10:25.26
4 × 100 m relay		42.09	Iran	43.87		43.92
4 × 400 m relay		3:11.63	Iran	3:13.93		3:32.37
10,000 m walk	Iran	45:34	Iran	46:55	Iran	47:23
High jump	Fakhredin Fouad	2.10	Iran	2.00		1.95
High jump	Fakhredin Fouad	2.10	Iran	2.00	Iran	1.95
Pole vault	Iran	4.20	Iran	4.20	Iran	4.10
Long jump		7.35		7.19		6.79
Triple jump	Maksim Smetanin	15.90	Iran	15.75		15.35
Shot put	Iran	16.97	Iran	16.51		15.80
Discus throw	Abbas Samimi Iran	52.90		51.90	Iran	51.04
Hammer throw		64.06	Iran	63.80	Dilshod Nazarov	59.94
Javelin throw	Syria	71.10	Ghanem Zaid	65.94	Iran	65.84
Decathlon	Iran	6213	Iran	5958	Iran	5935