At the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki, 33 athletics events were contested, 24 for men and 9 for women. There were a total number of 963 participating athletes from 57 countries.
During the 1952 Summer Olympic Games, 26 new Olympic records and 8 new world records were set in the athletics events.
A total of 57 nations participated in the different Athletics events at the 1952 Summer Olympics. Numbers in parenthesis indicate the number of athletes representing each nation.