Going into the competition, the most prominent athletes were Algeria's Rachid Habchaoui and Turkey's Mehmet Terzi, both of whom had won long-distance running medals at the 1979 Mediterranean Games. Habchaoui took a long-distance track double in the 5000 metres and 10,000 metres, while Terzi was the marathon winner and 10,000 m runner-up. Olympic steeplechase finalist Lahcene Babaci was the winner of his event and, another Algerian, middle-distance running specialist Amar Brahmia was well established, having won multiple medals at the 1978 All-Africa Games. However, it was the efforts of two young athletes who rose to prominence by winning their first major titles here that had the greatest impact on Islamic athletics. Brahmia was beaten in both the 800 metres and 1500 metres by twenty-one-year-old Saïd Aouita, who would later go on to win one of Morocco's first Olympic gold medals, alongside Nawal El Moutawakel, at the 1984 Summer Olympics. Nineteen-year-old Ahmed Hamada Jassim of Bahrain was the other athlete to emerge internationally at this competition: after winning the 400 metres hurdles he went on to be one of Asia's foremost athletes in the event and was the champion at the 1986 Asian Games.