# Athletics at the 1997 West Asian Games

At the 1997 West Asian Games. the athletics events were held in Tehran, Iran in November 1997. It had a men's only programme containing twenty-two track and field events. All performances were affected by the altitude of the host city (3,900 ft; 1,200 m).
The host nation dominated the proceedings, winning half of the gold medals on offer (11) and more than half of the total medals with its haul of 38 medals. Kuwait was a comfortable second with eight golds among its fifteen medals, while Jordan was a distant third with one gold in its total of five medals. Seven nations reached the medal table in the athletics competition.
The competition was of a relatively low standard for an international athletics meet. Virtually all the performances were closer to the level expected in elite women's competitions. Among the better performers were Maksim Smetanin, a 1996 Olympian from Kyrgyzstan who won the triple jump with 15.90 metres. Two young athletes in the throws discus thrower Abbas Samimi (aged 20), sprinter Fawzi Al-Shammari (aged 18) and hammer thrower Dilshod Nazarov (aged 15) secured their first major medals at an international meeting – all went on to claim multiple medals at the Asian Games and Asian Athletics Championships later in their careers.

## Medalists

| Event | Gold | Gold | Silver | Silver | Bronze | Bronze |
| 100 m | Musaed Al-Azemi Kuwait | 10.83 | Abdolghaffar Saghar Iran | 10.87 | Fawzi Al-Shammari Kuwait | 11.05 |
| 200 m | Khaled Al-Johar Kuwait | 21.34 | Musaed Al-Azemi Kuwait | 21.37 | Maisam Delvarian Iran | 22.05 |
| 400 m | Khaled Al-Johar Kuwait | 46.51 | Fawzi Al-Shammari Kuwait | 48.17 | Mehdi Jelodarzadeh Iran | 49.07 |
| 800 m | Mohammad Reza Molaei Iran | 1:54.40 | Boris Kaveshnikov Kyrgyzstan | 1:54.73 | Mehdi Jelodarzadeh Iran | 1:55.58 |
| 1500 m | Ahmad Yazdanian Iran | 3:57.74 | Farhad Heidari Iran | 3:58.24 | Rasoul Mohammadbeigi Iran | 4:14.33 |
| 5000 m | Jafar Babakhani Iran | 14:39.04 | Awad Al-Hasini Jordan | 14:43.94 | Ahmad Zarekar Iran | 14:45.57 |
| 10,000 m | Ahmad Zarekar Iran | 30:32.38 | Awad Al-Hasini Jordan | 30:56.80 | Ebrahim Etaati Iran | 31:15.01 |
| 110 m hurdles | Bader Abbas Kuwait | 14.42 | Zeyad Abdulrazak Kuwait | 14.70 | Fadin Mohammadzadeh Iran | 14.92 |
| 400 m hurdles | Hamid Reza Fardinpour Iran | 52.53 | Majid Foroutannia Iran | 53.49 | Baýmyrat Aşirmyradow Turkmenistan | 54.35 |
| 3000 m steeplechase | Jafar Babakhani Iran | 9:12.10 | Abolfazl Mahmoudian Iran | 9:12.17 | Karim Seyedin Iran | 10:25.26 |
| 4 × 100 m relay | Kuwait | 42.09 | Iran | 43.87 | Turkmenistan | 43.92 |
| 4 × 400 m relay | Kuwait | 3:11.63 | Iran | 3:13.93 | Turkmenistan | 3:32.37 |
| 10,000 m walk | Gholamreza Zare Iran | 45:34 | Ahmad Fazeli Iran | 46:55 | Hamid Reza Kahrizi Iran | 47:23 |
| High jump | Fakhredin Fouad Jordan | 2.10 | Hassan Banitorfi Iran | 2.00 | Juma Niýazow Turkmenistan | 1.95 |
| High jump | Fakhredin Fouad Jordan | 2.10 | Hassan Banitorfi Iran | 2.00 | Alireza Ghiasi Iran | 1.95 |
| Pole vault | Hassan Mirseifi Iran | 4.20 | Mehdi Mobini Iran | 4.20 | Abdolmajid Sotoudehnia Iran | 4.10 |
| Long jump | Khaled Al-Bakheet Kuwait | 7.35 | Husein Al-Youhah Kuwait | 7.19 | Aleksandr Tumanow Turkmenistan | 6.79 |
| Triple jump | Maksim Smetanin Kyrgyzstan | 15.90 | Mehrzad Charkhian Iran | 15.75 | Khaled Al-Bakheet Kuwait | 15.35 |
| Shot put | Ali Rahmani Iran | 16.97 | Ali Sayyah Iran | 16.51 | Tareq Al-Najjar Jordan | 15.80 |
| Discus throw | Abbas Samimi Iran | 52.90 | Tareq Al-Najjar Jordan | 51.90 | Fariborz Malek Iran | 51.04 |
| Hammer throw | Naser Al-Jarallah Kuwait | 64.06 | Ghorban Salahi Iran | 63.80 | Dilshod Nazarov Tajikistan | 59.94 |
| Javelin throw | Firas Al-Mahamid Syria | 71.10 | Ghanem Zaid Kuwait | 65.94 | Danghatar Yaghouti Iran | 65.84 |
| Decathlon | Ali Feizi Iran | 6213 | Abdollah Hedayati Iran | 5958 | Hamid Asiabi Iran | 5935 |

## Medal table

| Rank | Nation | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
| 1 | Iran (IRI) | 11 | 13 | 14 | 38 |
| 2 | Kuwait (KUW) | 8 | 5 | 2 | 15 |
| 3 | Jordan (JOR) | 1 | 3 | 1 | 5 |
| 4 | Kyrgyzstan (KGZ) | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| 5 | Syria (SYR) | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 6 | Turkmenistan (TKM) | 0 | 0 | 5 | 5 |
| 7 | Tajikistan (TJK) | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Totals (7 entries) | Totals (7 entries) | 22 | 22 | 23 | 67 |