# Athletics at the 1997 East Asian Games

At the 1997 East Asian Games, the athletics events were held at the Busan Gudeok Stadium in Busan, South Korea from 10 to 19 May. Forty-three events were contested, 23 by male and 20 by female athletes.
In terms of country performance the competition was a closely contested affair between Japan, which dominated the men's events, and China which led in the women's proceedings. Both finished with a total of 16 gold medals, but China's strength in depth showed in the minor medals as it took a medal haul of 52 (ten more than Japan). Kazakhstan took the third-most gold medals with seven, while the hosts (South Korea) won 18 medals to be the third-best medalling team, although this was one of their weaker sports.
In terms of athletes, Minori Hayakari provided a boost to Japan by winning silver in the 800 metres and a bronze in the 1500 metres event. Wang Zhicheng of China also won two individual medals: a 5000 metres silver, and 10,000 metres bronze. A number of athletes went on to further success at the 1998 Asian Games: Japan's Koji Ito and Koji Murofushi won gold in their events, and China had particular success with their field eventers as Ren Ruiping, Li Meisu and Li Shaojie all took Asian Games gold medals.

## Medal summary
### Men

| Event | Gold | Gold | Silver | Silver | Bronze | Bronze |
| 100 metres Wind: 4.0 m/s | Nobuharu Asahara (JPN) | 10.04 w | Lin Wei (CHN) | 10.30 w | Hideki Onohara (JPN) | 10.36 w |
| 200 metres | Koji Ito (JPN) | 20.98 GR | Huang Danwei (CHN) | 21.05 | Han Chaoming (CHN) | 21.23 |
| 400 metres | Son Ju-Il (KOR) | 45.84 GR | Shunji Karube (JPN) | 46.08 | Shigekazu Ōmori (JPN) | 46.50 |
| 800 metres | Kim Soon-Hyung (KOR) | 1:49.00 | Lee Jae-Hun (KOR) | 1:50.75 | Zhang Yi (CHN) | 1:50.76 |
| 1500 metres | Kiyonari Shibata (JPN) | 3:49.90 GR | Liu Lijun (CHN) | 3:49.97 | Kim Soon-Hyung (KOR) | 3:51.18 |
| 5000 metres | Yuichi Tajiri (JPN) | 13:55.84 | Wang Zhicheng (CHN) | 14:03.62 | Kim Seong-Ho (KOR) | 14:22.96 |
| 10,000 metres | Toshinari Takaoka (JPN) | 28:44.60 GR | Kenji Takao (JPN) | 29:29.08 | Wang Zhicheng (CHN) | 29:49.54 |
| 110 metre hurdles | Li Tong (CHN) | 13.67 GR | Chen Yanhao (CHN) | 13.70 | Hisanobu Konae (JPN) | 13.85 |
| 400 metre hurdles | Kazuhiko Yamazaki (JPN) | 49.60 GR | Yoshihiko Saito (JPN) | 50.41 | Tan Chunhua (CHN) | 50.73 |
| 3000 metre steeplechase | Yasunori Uchitomi (JPN) | 8:39.28 GR | Wataru Izumi (JPN) | 8:45.38 | Qin Gang (CHN) | 8:54.16 |
| 4×100 metre relay | Japan (JPN) | 39.32 GR | China (CHN) | 39.43 | Chinese Taipei (TPE) | 40.31 |
| 4×400 metre relay | Japan (JPN) | 3:04.35 =GR | South Korea (KOR) | 3:09.11 | Chinese Taipei (TPE) | 3:09.77 |
| Half marathon | Kokichi Kawamoto (JPN) | 1:07:06 | Je In-Mo (KOR) | 1:07:16 | Ko Jung-Won (KOR) | 1:08:17 |
| 20 km track walk | Jiao Baozhong (CHN) | 1:23:58.59 | Daisuke Ikeshima (JPN) | 1:23:59.99 | Hirofumi Sakai (JPN) | 1:27:39.38 |
| High jump | Lee Jin-Taek (KOR) | 2.28 m GR | Kim Tae-Hoi (KOR) | 2.24 m | Takahisa Yoshida (JPN) | 2.24 m |
| Pole vault | Aleksandr Korchagin (KAZ) | 5.50 m GR | Kim Chul-Kyun (KOR) | 5.40 m | Xu Gang (CHN) | 5.40 m |
| Long jump | Masaki Morinaga (JPN) | 8.13 m | Huang Geng (CHN) | 8.03 m w | Chen Jing (CHN) | 7.92 m |
| Triple jump | Sergey Arzamasov (KAZ) | 16.89 m GR | Lao Jianfeng (CHN) | 16.71 m | Takashi Komatsu (JPN) | 16.39 m |
| Shot put | Sergey Rubtsov (KAZ) | 19.47 m | Wen Jili (CHN) | 18.57 m | Li Wenkui (CHN) | 18.28 m |
| Discus throw | Li Shaojie (CHN) | 62.58 m GR | Zhang Cunbiao (CHN) | 60.42 m | Dashdendev Makhashiri (MGL) | 60.14 m |
| Hammer throw | Koji Murofushi (JPN) | 73.40 m | Ye Kuigang (CHN) | 69.56 m | Bi Zhong (CHN) | 68.68 m |
| Javelin throw | Zhang Lianbiao (CHN) | 77.80 m GR | Toro Ue (JPN) | 73.74 m | Kim Ki-Hun (KOR) | 72.42 m |
| Decathlon | Kim Tae-Keun (KOR) | 7372 pts | Chen Chien-Hung (TPE) | 7103 pts | Choi Sung-Shin (KOR) | 7045 pts |

### Women

| Event | Gold | Gold | Silver | Silver | Bronze | Bronze |
| 100 metres Wind: 2.5 m/s | Liang Yi (CHN) | 11.46 w | Kaori Yoshida (JPN) | 11.49 w | Yue Ling (CHN) | 11.55 w |
| 200 metres | Yan Jiankui (CHN) | 23.44 GR | Chen Yuxiang (CHN) | 23.82 | Motoko Arai (JPN) | 24.09 |
| 400 metres | Svetlana Bodritskaya (KAZ) | 52.92 GR | Du Xiujie (CHN) | 53.48 | Satomi Kasashima (JPN) | 54.17 |
| 800 metres | Zhang Jian (CHN) | 2:06.16 | Minori Hayakari (JPN) | 2:07.65 | Zhang Jinqing (CHN) | 2:10.05 |
| 1500 metres | Liu Jianying (CHN) | 4:19.36 | Yoshiko Ichikawa (JPN) | 4:19.80 | Minori Hayakari (JPN) | 4:21.37 |
| 5000 metres | Harumi Hiroyama (JPN) | 15:37.53 GR | Wei Li (CHN) | 15:38.73 | Wang Mingxia (CHN) | 15:46.88 |
| 10,000 metres | Masako Chiba (JPN) | 31:31.85 GR | Wang Mingxia (CHN) | 32:47.20 | Yuko Kawakami (JPN) | 33:02.25 |
| 100 metre hurdles | Yvonne Kanazawa (JPN) | 13.16 GR | Chan Sau Ying (HKG) | 13.29 | Liu Jing (CHN) | 13.31 |
| 400 metre hurdles | Natalya Torshina (KAZ) | 55.90 GR | Hsu Pei-Ching (TPE) | 58.00 | Li Rui (CHN) | 58.06 |
| 4×100 metre relay | China (CHN) | 45.05 | Japan (JPN) | 45.16 | Chinese Taipei (TPE) | 45.52 |
| 4×400 metre relay | China (CHN) | 3:35.27 | Japan (JPN) | 3:36.60 | South Korea (KOR) | 3:54.05 |
| Half marathon | Zheng Guixia (CHN) | 1:14:19 GR | Sachie Ozaki (JPN) | 1:14:22 | Naomi Sakashita (JPN) | 1:14:31 |
| 10,000 m track walk | Yuka Mitsumori (JPN) | 46:23.25 | Svetlana Tolstaya (KAZ) | 47:08.09 | Feng Haixia (CHN) | 47:20.49 |
| High jump | Jin Ling (CHN) | 1.91 m GR | Svetlana Zalevskaya (KAZ) | 1.88 m | Miki Imai (JPN) | 1.88 m |
| Long jump | Yelena Pershina (KAZ) | 6.59 m GR | Yu Yiqin (CHN) | 6.42 m | Zhang Hongling (CHN) | 6.25 m |
| Triple jump | Ren Ruiping (CHN) | 14.47 m GR | Li Jiahui (CHN) | 13.50 m | Seiko Nishiuchi (JPN) | 13.13 m |
| Shot put | Li Meisu (CHN) | 19.07 m | Sui Xinmei (CHN) | 18.26 m | Lee Myung-Sun (KOR) | 17.56 m |
| Discus throw | Xiao Yanling (CHN) | 63.82 m GR | Luan Zhili (CHN) | 61.94 m | Yuka Murofushi (JPN) | 51.90 m |
| Javelin throw | Li Lei (CHN) | 56.92 m | Lee Young-Sun (KOR) | 56.10 m | Jang Jeong-Yeon (KOR) | 51.06 m |
| Heptathlon | Svetlana Kazanina (KAZ) | 5971 pts | Ma Chun-Ping (TPE) | 5737 pts | Wang Xiuyan (CHN) | 5560 pts |

## Medal table

* Host nation (South Korea)
| Rank | Nation | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
| 1 | China (CHN) | 16 | 19 | 17 | 52 |
| 2 | Japan (JPN) | 16 | 12 | 14 | 42 |
| 3 | Kazakhstan (KAZ) | 7 | 2 | 0 | 9 |
| 4 | South Korea (KOR)* | 4 | 6 | 8 | 18 |
| 5 | Chinese Taipei (TPE) | 0 | 3 | 3 | 6 |
| 6 | Hong Kong (HKG) | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 7 | Mongolia (MGL) | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 8 | Guam (GUM) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 8 | Macau (MAC) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Totals (9 entries) | Totals (9 entries) | 43 | 43 | 43 | 129 |