At his previous appearance the 1984 Summer Olympics, runner Adolphe Ambowodé completed the Men's marathon in a time of 2:41:26, finishing in 70th place. His time in the marathon at the 1988 Games was nearly 18 minutes faster, with the runner finishing in a time of 2:23:52 in 42nd place out of the 98 athletes completing the course. The result was the best performance by a Central African at an athletics so far.