Athletics at the Games of the XXI Olympiad
No. of events	37
Competitors	1,005 from 80 nations
← 1972 1980 →

At the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, 37 events were contested in athletics. There were a total number of 1005 participating athletes from 80 countries.

The men's 50 kilometres walk competition was dropped from the Olympic athletics programme, despite its constant presence at the games since 1932. The IAAF chose to host its own world championship event instead, a month and a half after the Olympics. This foreshadowed the creation of the IAAF World Championships in Athletics in the following years.^[1][2]

Medal summary

Men

Event	Gold		Silver		Bronze
100 metres details	Hasely Crawford  Trinidad and Tobago	10.06	Don Quarrie  Jamaica	10.08	Valeriy Borzov  Soviet Union	10.14
200 metres details	Don Quarrie  Jamaica	20.23	Millard Hampton  United States	20.29	Dwayne Evans  United States	20.43
400 metres details	Alberto Juantorena  Cuba	44.26	Fred Newhouse  United States	44.40	Herman Frazier  United States	44.95
800 metres details	Alberto Juantorena  Cuba	1:43.50 WR	Ivo Van Damme  Belgium	1:43.86	Rick Wohlhuter  United States	1:44.12
1500 metres details	John Walker  New Zealand	3:39.17	Ivo Van Damme  Belgium	3:39.27	Paul-Heinz Wellmann  West Germany	3:39.33
5000 metres details	Lasse Virén  Finland	13:24.76	Dick Quax  New Zealand	13:25.16	Klaus-Peter Hildenbrand  West Germany	13:25.38
10,000 metres details	Lasse Virén  Finland	27:40.38	Carlos Lopes  Portugal	27:45:17	Brendan Foster  Great Britain	27:54.92
110 metres hurdles details	Guy Drut  France	13.30	Alejandro Casañas  Cuba	13.33	Willie Davenport  United States	13.38
400 metres hurdles details	Edwin Moses  United States	47.64 WR	Michael Shine  United States	48.69	Yevgeniy Gavrilenko  Soviet Union	49.45
3000 metres steeplechase details	Anders Gärderud  Sweden	8:08.02 WR	Bronisław Malinowski  Poland	8:09.11	Frank Baumgartl  East Germany	8:10.36
4 × 100 metres relay details	United States (USA) Harvey Glance Johnny Jones Millard Hampton Steve Riddick	38.33	East Germany (GDR) Manfred Kokot Jörg Pfeifer Klaus-Dieter Kurrat Alexander Thieme	38.66	Soviet Union (URS) Aleksandr Aksinin Nikolay Kolesnikov Juris Silovs Valeriy Borzov	38.78
4 × 400 metres relay details	United States (USA) Herman Frazier Benny Brown Fred Newhouse Maxie Parks	2:58.65	Poland (POL) Ryszard Podlas Jan Werner Zbigniew Jaremski Jerzy Pietrzyk	3:01.43	West Germany (FRG) Franz-Peter Hofmeister Lothar Krieg Harald Schmid Bernd Herrmann	3:01.98
Marathon details	Waldemar Cierpinski  East Germany	2:09:55.0	Frank Shorter  United States	2:10:45.8	Karel Lismont  Belgium	2:11:12.6
20 kilometres walk details	Daniel Bautista  Mexico	1:24:40.6	Hans-Georg Reimann  East Germany	1:25:13.6	Peter Frenkel  East Germany	1:25:29.4
High jump details	Jacek Wszoła  Poland	2.25 m	Greg Joy  Canada	2.23 m	Dwight Stones  United States	2.21 m
Pole vault details	Tadeusz Ślusarski  Poland	5.50 m	Antti Kalliomäki  Finland	5.50 m	David Roberts  United States	5.50 m
Long jump details	Arnie Robinson  United States	8.35 m	Randy Williams  United States	8.11 m	Frank Wartenberg  East Germany	8.02 m
Triple jump details	Viktor Saneyev  Soviet Union	17.29 m	James Butts  United States	17.18 m	João Carlos de Oliveira  Brazil	16.90 m
Shot put details	Udo Beyer  East Germany	21.05 m	Yevgeny Mironov  Soviet Union	21.03 m	Aleksandr Baryshnikov  Soviet Union	21.00 m
Discus throw details	Mac Wilkins  United States	67.50 m	Wolfgang Schmidt  East Germany	66.22 m	John Powell  United States	65.70 m
Hammer throw details	Yuriy Sedykh  Soviet Union	77.52 m	Aleksey Spiridonov  Soviet Union	76.08 m	Anatolij Bondarčuk  Soviet Union	75.48 m
Javelin throw details	Miklós Németh  Hungary	94.58 WR	Hannu Siitonen  Finland	87.92	Gheorghe Megelea  Romania	87.16 m
Decathlon details	Bruce Jenner [a]  United States	8618 WR	Guido Kratschmer  West Germany	8411	Mykola Avilov  Soviet Union	8369

Women

Games	Gold		Silver		Bronze
100 metres details	Annegret Richter  West Germany	11.08	Renate Stecher  East Germany	11.13	Inge Helten  West Germany	11.17
200 metres details	Bärbel Eckert  East Germany	22.37 OR	Annegret Richter  West Germany	22.39	Renate Stecher  East Germany	22.47
400 metres details	Irena Szewińska  Poland	49.28 WR	Christina Brehmer  East Germany	50.51	Ellen Streidt  East Germany	50.55
800 metres details	Tatyana Kazankina  Soviet Union	1:54.94 WR	Nikolina Shtereva  Bulgaria	1:55.42	Elfi Zinn  East Germany	1:55.60
1500 metres details	Tatyana Kazankina  Soviet Union	4:05.48	Gunhild Hoffmeister  East Germany	4:06.02	Ulrike Klapezynski  East Germany	4:06.09
100 metres hurdles details	Johanna Schaller  East Germany	12.77	Tatiana Anisimova  Soviet Union	12.78	Natalya Lebedeva  Soviet Union	12.80
4 × 100 metres relay details	East Germany (GDR) Marlies Oelsner Renate Stecher Carla Bodendorf Bärbel Eckert	42.55 OR	West Germany (FRG) Elvira Possekel Inge Helten Annegret Richter Annegret Kroniger	42.59	Soviet Union (URS) Tetyana Prorochenko Lyudmila Maslakova Nadezhda Besfamilnaya Vera Anisimova	43.09
4 × 400 metres relay details	East Germany (GDR) Doris Maletzki Brigitte Rohde Ellen Streidt Christina Brehmer	3:19.23 WR	United States (USA) Debra Sapenter Sheila Ingram Pamela Jiles Rosalyn Bryant	3:22.81	Soviet Union (URS) Inta Kļimoviča Lyudmila Aksyonova Natalya Sokolova Nadezhda Ilyina	3:24.24
High jump details	Rosemarie Ackermann  East Germany	1.93 m OR	Sara Simeoni  Italy	1.91 m	Yordanka Blagoeva  Bulgaria	1.91 m
Long jump details	Angela Voigt  East Germany	6.72 m	Kathy McMillan  United States	6.66 m	Lidiya Alfeyeva  Soviet Union	6.60 m
Shot put details	Ivanka Khristova  Bulgaria	21.16 m	Nadezhda Chizhova  Soviet Union	20.96 m	Helena Fibingerová  Czechoslovakia	20.67 m
Discus throw details	Evelin Schlaak  East Germany	69.00 m	Mariya Vergova  Bulgaria	67.30 m	Gabriele Hinzmann  East Germany	66.84 m
Javelin throw details	Ruth Fuchs  East Germany	65.94 m	Marion Becker  West Germany	64.70 m	Kate Schmidt  United States	63.96 m
Pentathlon details	Siegrun Siegl  East Germany	4745	Christine Laser  East Germany	4745	Burglinde Pollak  East Germany	4740

Medal table

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	East Germany (GDR)	11	7	9	27
2	United States (USA)	6	8	8	22
3	Soviet Union (URS)	4	4	10	18
4	Poland (POL)	3	2	0	5
5	Finland (FIN)	2	2	0	4
6	Cuba (CUB)	2	1	0	3
7	West Germany (FRG)	1	4	4	9
8	Bulgaria (BUL)	1	2	1	4
9	Jamaica (JAM)	1	1	0	2
	New Zealand (NZL)	1	1	0	2
11	France (FRA)	1	0	0	1
	Hungary (HUN)	1	0	0	1
	Mexico (MEX)	1	0	0	1
	Sweden (SWE)	1	0	0	1
	Trinidad and Tobago (TRI)	1	0	0	1
16	Belgium (BEL)	0	2	1	3
17	Canada (CAN)	0	1	0	1
	Italy (ITA)	0	1	0	1
	Portugal (POR)	0	1	0	1
20	Brazil (BRA)	0	0	1	1
	Czechoslovakia (TCH)	0	0	1	1
	Great Britain (GBR)	0	0	1	1
	Romania (ROU)	0	0	1	1
Totals (23 entries)		37	37	37	111

^[4]