Athletics at the Friendship Games was contested in 41 events, 24 events by men and 17 by women. Men competed at the Grand Arena of the Central Lenin Stadium (now Luzhniki Stadium) in Moscow, Soviet Union between 17 and 18 August, while women's events took place at the Evžen Rošický Stadium in Prague, Czechoslovakia between 16 and 18 August 1984.

One new world record was set, by East German Irina Meszynski in women's discus throw, with 73.36 m. As of 2024, it still ranks Meszynski sixth on the world all-time list.^[1]

In an unusual feat, Alberto Juantorena (Cuba) and Ryszard Ostrowski (Poland) both crossed the finish line at exactly the same moment in the men's 800 metres. After the officials were unable to split them using a photo-finish, both were declared gold medalists.^[2]

The Soviet Union dominated the final medal tally, winning 24 gold and 63 total medals. East Germany finished second, with 8 and 19 respectively.

Medal summary

Men

Event	Gold		Silver		Bronze
100 metres (wind: -0.4 m/s) details	Osvaldo Lara (CUB)	10.17	Attila Kovács (HUN)	10.18	Leandro Peñalver (CUB)	10.21
200 metres (wind: -1.2 m/s) details	Vladimir Muravyov (URS)	20.34	Aleksandr Yevgenyev (URS)	20.41	Olaf Prenzler (GDR)	20.58
400 metres details	Viktor Markin (URS)	44.78	Aleksandr Troshchilo (URS)	45.51	Aleksandr Kurochkin (URS)	45.57
800 metres details	Alberto Juantorena (CUB)  Ryszard Ostrowski (POL)	1:45.68	none awarded	–	Viktor Kalinkin (URS)	1:45.82
1500 metres details	Andreas Busse (GDR)	3:36.65	Anatoliy Kalutskiy (URS)	3:37.35	Igor Lotaryov (URS)	3:38.42
5000 metres details	Evgeni Ignatov (BUL)	13:26.35	Dmitriy Dmitriyev (URS)	13:26.85	Wodajo Bulti (ETH)	13:29.08
10,000 metres details	Valeriy Abramov (URS)	27:55.16	Wodajo Bulti (ETH)	27:58.97	Bekele Debele (ETH)	28:03.06
Marathon details	Dereje Nedi (ETH)	2:10:32	Abebe Mekonnen (ETH)	2:11:30	Lee Jong-hyong (PRK)	2:11:44
110 metres hurdles (wind: -0.5 m/s) details	György Bakos (HUN)	13.52	Vyacheslav Ustinov (URS)	13.57	Thomas Munkelt (GDR)	13.64
400 metres hurdles details	Aleksandr Vasilyev (URS)	48.63	Vladimir Budko (URS)	48.74	Toma Tomov (BUL)	49.29
3000 metres steeplechase details	Bogusław Mamiński (POL)	8:27.15	Hagen Melzer (GDR)	8:27.43	Jan Hagelbrandt (SWE)	8:32.36
4 × 100 metres relay details	Soviet Union (URS) Aleksandr Yevgenyev Sergey Sokolov Vladimir Muravyov Nikolay Sidorov	38.32	Cuba (CUB) Tomás González Leandro Peñalver Silvio Leonard Osvaldo Lara	38.79	Poland (POL) Krzysztof Zwoliński Marian Woronin Czesław Prądzyński Arkadiusz Janiak	38.81
4 × 400 metres relay details	Soviet Union (URS) Sergey Lovachev Yevgeniy Lomtev Aleksandr Kurochkin Viktor Markin	3:00.16	East Germany (GDR) Carlo Niestädt Mathias Schersing Thomas Schönlebe Jens Carlowitz	3:00.47	Cuba (CUB) Lázaro Martínez Carlos Reyte Roberto Ramos Alberto Juantorena	3:04.76
20 kilometres walk details	Sergey Protsishin (URS)	1:21:57	Anatoliy Solomin (URS)	1:22:21	Nikolay Polozov (URS)	1:22:40
50 kilometres walk details	Andrey Perlov (URS)	3:43:06	Pavol Szikora (TCH)	3:45:53	Viktor Dorovskikh (URS)	3:58:47
High jump details	Valeriy Sereda (URS)	2.25 m	Javier Sotomayor (CUB)	2.25 m	Dariusz Zielke (POL)	2.20 m
Pole vault details	Konstantin Volkov (URS)	5.80 m	Sergey Bubka (URS)	5.70 m	Aleksandr Krupskiy (URS)	5.70 m
Long jump details	Konstantin Semykin (URS)	8.38 m	Jaime Jefferson (CUB)	8.37 m	Sergey Layevskiy (URS)	8.22 m
Triple jump details	Oleg Protsenko (URS)	17.46 m	Aleksandr Yakovlev (URS)	17.41 m	Khristo Markov (BUL)	17.29 m
Shot put details	Sergey Kasnauskas (URS)	21.64 m	Udo Beyer (GDR)	21.60 m	Vladimir Kiselyov (URS)	21.58 m
Discus throw details	Yuriy Dumchev (URS)	66.70 m	Juan Martínez (CUB)	66.04 m	Jürgen Schult (GDR)	66.02 m
Hammer throw details	Yuriy Sedykh (URS)	85.60 m	Igor Nikulin (URS)	82.56 m	Sergey Litvinov (URS)	81.30 m
Javelin throw details	Uwe Hohn (GDR)	94.44 m	Detlef Michel (GDR)	88.32 m	Zdeněk Adamec (TCH)	87.10 m
Decathlon details	Grigoriy Degtyaryev (URS)	8523	Torsten Voss (GDR)	8450	Igor Sobolevskiy (URS)	8433

Women

Event	Gold		Silver		Bronze
100 metres (wind: -0.2 m/s) details	Marlies Göhr (GDR)	10.95	Lyudmila Kondratyeva (URS)	11.02	Anelia Nuneva (BUL)	11.10
200 metres (wind: -0.3 m/s) details	Bärbel Wöckel (GDR)	22.15	Svetlana Zhizdrikova (URS)	22.75	Nadezhda Georgieva (BUL)	22.79
400 metres details	Marita Koch (GDR)	48.16	Taťána Kocembová (TCH)	48.73	Olga Vladykina (URS)	49.52
800 metres details	Irina Podyalovskaya (URS)	1:57.31	Zuzana Moravčíková (TCH)	1:58.06	Nadiya Olizarenko (URS)	1:58.10
1500 metres details	Nadezhda Ralldugina (URS)	3:56.63	Ravilya Agletdinova (URS)	3:58.70	Yekaterina Podkopayeva (URS)	4:01.61
3000 metres details	Tatyana Kazankina (URS)	8:33.01	Natalya Artyomova (URS)	8:40.53	Olga Bondarenko (URS)	8:43.74
100 metres hurdles (wind: -0.2 m/s) details	Yordanka Donkova (BUL)	12.55	Sabine Paetz (GDR)	12.60	Lucyna Kałek (POL)	12.61
400 metres hurdles details	Marina Stepanova (URS)	53.67	Yekaterina Grun (URS)	54.42	Margarita Ponomaryova (URS)	54.65
Marathon details	Zoya Ivanova (URS)	2:33:44	Lucia Belyayeva (URS)	2:33:54	Raisa Smekhnova (URS)	2:33:59
4 × 100 metres relay details	Bulgaria (BUL) Pepa Pavlova Anelia Nuneva Nadezhda Georgieva Liliyana Ivanova	42.62	Soviet Union (URS) Lyudmila Kondratyeva Maia Azarashvili Svetlana Zhizdrikova Olga Antonova	42.71	Czechoslovakia (TCH) Eva Murková Taťána Kocembová Renata Černochová Jarmila Kratochvílová	43.21
4 × 400 metres relay details	Soviet Union (URS) Irina Baskakova Irina Nazarova Mariya Pinigina Olga Bryzgina	3:19.12	Czechoslovakia (TCH) Alena Bulířová Zuzana Moravčíková Jarmila Kratochvílová Taťána Kocembová	3:21.89	Bulgaria (BUL) Galina Penkova Katia Ilieva Radostina Shtereva Rositsa Stamenova	3:28.34
High jump details	Lyudmila Andonova (BUL)	1.96 m	Lyudmila Butuzova (URS)	1.96 m	Tamara Bykova (URS)	1.96 m
Long jump details	Heike Drechsler (GDR)	7.15 m	Helga Radtke (GDR)	7.11 m	Galina Chistyakova (URS)	7.11 m
Shot put details	Natalya Lisovskaya (URS)	21.96 m	Helena Fibingerová (TCH)	21.33 m	Nunu Abashidze (URS)	21.18 m
Discus throw details	Irina Meszynski (GDR)	73.36 m (WR)	Galina Murašova (URS)	72.14 m	Zdenka Šilhavá (TCH)	70.14 m
Javelin throw details	Petra Felke (GDR)	73.30 m	Antoaneta Todorova (BUL)	65.40 m	María Caridad Colón (CUB)	64.34 m
Heptathlon details	Natalya Gracheva (URS)	6477	Nadezhda Vinogradova (URS)	6357	Heike Tischler (GDR)	6290

World records broken

1 new world record was set.

Event	Name	Nationality	Result
Women's discus throw	Irina Meszynski	East Germany	73.36 m

Medal table

  *   Host nation (Host nations (Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union))

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	Soviet Union (URS)*	24	20	19	63
2	East Germany (GDR)	8	7	4	19
3	Bulgaria (BUL)	4	1	5	10
4	Cuba (CUB)	3	3	3	9
5	Poland (POL)	2	0	3	5
6	Ethiopia (ETH)	1	2	2	5
7	Hungary (HUN)	1	1	0	2
8	Czechoslovakia (TCH)*	0	5	3	8
9	North Korea (PRK)	0	0	1	1
	Sweden (SWE)	0	0	1	1
Totals (10 entries)		43	39	41	123

Participating nations