Athletics at the 2012 Summer Olympics

With the exception of the marathons and the road walks, track & field athletics took place at the Olympic Stadium within the Olympic Park. There were no changes to the program since the 2008 Olympic Games, with men and women competing in almost an identical program, the only differences being that men contest two walks and women only one, the high hurdles are different distances – 100 metres for women and 110 metres for men, and women compete in the multi-event heptathlon while men compete in the decathlon.

The highlight occurred on the first Saturday night of athletics competition when British fans rocked as their athletes won three gold medals within 45 minutes. Jessica Ennis first won the heptathlon, completing the event with her 800 metre run, followed by an upset victory by Greg Rutherford in the men’s long jump. The evening finished with Mo Farah winning the 10,000 metres followed by the deafening roar of the British crowd.

There were three world records set on what was considered a very fast track. David Rudisha won the 800 metres, becoming the first runner to complete the distance under 1:41. Both 4x100 relay world records were ripped asunder, by the Jamaican men and the American women. Usain Bolt again starred, repeating his 3-gold medals from Beijing in the 100 metres, 200 metres, and 4x100 relay (although the 2008 relay gold would later be voided because of a doping disqualification to Nesta Carter). The only other individual double gold medalist was Farah, who on the final night of athletics competition, won the 5,000 metres, again before an adoring crowd.

In 2015 the IOC began re-testing samples from the 2008 Beijing and 2012 London Olympics, using newer, more advanced testing techniques, in an effort to find those who had used performance enhancing drugs (PEDs), but in whom it could not be detected at the time of those Olympics. The 2012 athletics events were markedly affected, causing many of the results to be changed. In all, there were 69 PED disqualifications from the 2012 athletics events, with 6 gold medalists and 14 medalists losing their medals.