The competition format typically has a two-race heats stage that leads directly to a final between fifteen athletes.

[1] The world record has never been broken or equalled at the competition by either men or women, reflecting the lack of pacemaking and athletes' more tactical approach to championship races.

Meseret Defar is the most successful female athlete of the event, having won two world championship titles and reached the medal podium five times consecutively from 2005 to 2013.

Kenya is the most successful nation in the discipline, with seven wins in the men's distance and five in the women's, and has the highest medal total at 30.

[5] Only one other competitor has been disqualified from the 5000 m for doping: Turkey's Alemitu Bekele Degfa, whose unsuccessful run in the heats in 2011 was annulled retrospectively after biological passport irregularities.