This article contains an overview of the sport of athletics, including track and field, cross country and road running, in the year 2004.
The major competition of the year was the 2004 Summer Olympics. At the event, Yelena Isinbayeva cleared a world record 4.91 m in the pole vault. Liu Xiang won the men's 110 metres hurdles with a world record-equalling time of 12.91 seconds, defying traditional beliefs about the physical calibre of Chinese (and Asian) sprint athletes. Hicham El Guerrouj capped off his prominent international career with two gold medals in the 1500 m and 5000 m. The Olympic competition in Athens was marred by an incident involving Greek Olympic medallists Konstantinos Kenteris and Ekaterini Thanou, who were alleged to have staged a motorcycle crash in order to avoid doping tests. Both athletes missed the competition and were later banned for missing three doping tests.
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