Athletics at the 1994 Goodwill Games

Athletics at the 1994 Goodwill Games
The 28,000-capacity Petrovsky Stadium provided the venue for the athletics competition.
Host city	St. Petersburg, Russia
Date(s)	July 1994
Main stadium	Petrovsky Stadium
Participation	372 athletes from 46 nations
Records set	1 world record 15 Games records
← 1990 Seattle 1998 New York → 1994 Goodwill Games

At the 1994 Goodwill Games, the athletics events were held in July at the Petrovsky Stadium in Saint Petersburg, Russia. A total of 44 events were contested, of which 22 were by male and 22 by female athletes. The marathon event was dropped for the 1994 edition and racewalking events took place on the track, making the entire athletics programme a track and field-only affair. The United States won the most gold medals (18) in the athletics competition, but Russia had the greatest total medal haul, winning 41 medals, 10 of which were gold. Cuba, Great Britain and Kenya were the next best achievers in the medal count.

The competition remained invitation-only and each event was contested in a single final format. Fifteen Goodwill Games records were equalled or improved at the competition, and Marina Pluzhnikova achieved a world record in the little-contested 2000 metres steeplechase (although the IAAF does not ratify world records for that distance). The United States completed medal sweeps in the men's 100 metres, long jump, decathlon and women's 400 metres. Noureddine Morceli's winning time of 3:48.67 in the mile run was a games record and the fastest of 1994. In spite of appearances from prominent athletes such as Sergey Bubka, Irina Privalova and Carl Lewis, the stadium failed to reach much more than half of its 28,000 capacity over the five-day competition.