A total of thirty athletics events were contested, twenty-one for men and nine for women.

While the men's programme was well attended, the women's events attracted very few entries, with Turkish female track athletes composing the bulk of the competitors.

[4] The host nation Turkey was easily the most dominant in the sport, winning fourteen of the thirty events on offer.

[1] 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.

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.