At the 1900 Summer Olympics, twenty-three athletics events were contested.

In many countries, due in part to the conflation of the Olympic Games and the World's Fair in Paris, the media discussed only the athletics events under the "Olympic" name while ignoring the incredible variety of other sports featured at the time.

This included Bastille Day, which is a French holiday, and then Sunday, which many of the American athletes protested.

Even with many Americans not competing in finals because of confusion caused by the organizers' decision to count scores achieved on Monday, 16 July for finals held on Sunday, 15 July and subsequent rescission of that decision, the United States won more than 4 times as many medals as any other nation, including 16 of the 23 gold medals.

There was no track for the Paris Games, as a grass field dotted with trees and of unequal elevation was used.