Athletics at the 1997 Arab Games

At the 1997 Pan Arab Games, the athletics events were held at the Camille Chamoun Sports City Stadium in Beirut, Lebanon from 14 to 17 July.

The events were poorly attended, with the vast majority of seat in the stadium remaining empty even on the final day.

Future Pan Arab Games were scheduled in the year before the Summer Olympics to avoid similar clashes of the regional events, which are attended by several of the same nations.

The rest of the programme was similar to that of the 1992 Pan Arab Games, although racewalking events were dropped for both men and women on this occasion.

[4] The road races, held on the first day of the games, encountered traffic problems: men's bronze medallist Ahmad Adam was hit by the referee's car and a women's medallist complained that the general public driving on the same road had made her run difficult.