The 1996

Arab Junior Athletics Championships The Arab Junior Athletics Championships is an biennial international athletics competition between athletes under the age of 20 ( juniors) from Arabic countries. It is organised by the Arab Athletic Association. If was first held in 1984 – seven ...

was the seventh edition of the international

athletics Athletics may refer to: Sports * Sport of athletics, a collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking ** Track and field, a sub-category of the above sport * Athletics (physical culture), competiti ...

competition for under-20 athletes from

Arab countries The Arab world ( ar, اَلْعَالَمُ الْعَرَبِيُّ '), formally the Arab homeland ( '), also known as the Arab nation ( '), the Arabsphere, or the Arab states, refers to a vast group of countries, mainly located in Western As ...

. It took place in

Latakia , coordinates = , elevation_footnotes = , elevation_m = 11 , elevation_ft = , postal_code_type = , postal_code = , area_code = Country code: 963 City code: 41 , geocode ...

, Syria. A total of 41

athletics events The sport of athletics is defined by the many events which make up its competition programmes. All events within the sport are forms of running, walking, jumping or throwing. These events are divided into the sub-sports of track and field, road ru ...

were contested, 22 for men and 19 for women. Morocco, a regional power in the sport, did not send a team to the meeting.Pan Arab Junior Championships
GBR Athletics. Retrieved on 2015-02-22. The road race competition was dropped from the programme, matching the change at the

1996 World Junior Championships in Athletics The 1996 World Junior Championships in Athletics were held in Sydney, Australia on August 20–25. Results Men Women Medal table Participation According to an unofficial count through an unofficial result list, 1049 athletes from 142 cou ...

and a general move away from road running events for junior athletes. A women's

5000 metres The 5000 metres or 5000-metre run is a common long-distance running event in track and field, approximately equivalent to or . It is one of the track events in the Olympic Games and the World Championships in Athletics, run over laps of a stan ...

replaced the

3000 metres The 3000 metres or 3000-metre run is a track running event, also commonly known as the "3K" or "3K run", where 7.5 laps are run around an outdoor 400 m track, or 15 laps around a 200 m indoor track. It is debated whether the 3000m shoul ...

, but this was a short-lived change as the 3000 m was brought back the following edition. This was the last time the women's

10,000 metres The 10,000 metres or the 10,000-metre run is a common long-distance track running event. The event is part of the athletics programme at the Olympic Games and the World Athletics Championships, and is common at championship level events. The race ...

was held (the 5000 m taking its place at future editions (a change also reflected at world junior level). Algeria topped the medal table with twelve gold medals, closely followed by Tunisia on ten golds. Saudi Arabia managed seven gold medals despite having no participation in the women's section. Sudan won its first titles at the competition, courtesy of

Mohammed Yagoub Mohamed Babiker Yagoub (born 2 September 1977) is a Sudanese middle-distance runner. He competed in the men's 800 metres at the 1996 Summer Olympics. Yagoub, who is an ethnic Fur and native of Darfur, has a nephew named Waleed Suliman currently ...

's middle-distance double. In the men's section, Algeria provided the most prominent athletes.

Abderrahmane Hammad Abderrahmane Hammad Zaheer ( ar, عبدالرحمن حمٌاد, born May 27, 1977, in Dellys) is a former Algerian track and field athlete who competed in the high jump. He represented his country at the Summer Olympics in 2000, taking the bronze ...

improved one place from the last edition to win the

high jump The high jump is a track and field event in which competitors must jump unaided over a horizontal bar placed at measured heights without dislodging it. In its modern, most-practiced format, a bar is placed between two standards with a crash mat f ...

– an event he won an Olympic medal in four years later. Two others here would medal at the

2000 Sydney Olympics The 2000 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXVII Olympiad and also known as Sydney 2000 (Dharug: ''Gadigal 2000''), the Millennium Olympic Games or the Games of the New Millennium, was an international multi-sport event held from 1 ...

800 metres The 800 metres, or meters ( US spelling), is a common track running event. It is the shortest commonly run middle-distance running event. The 800 metres is run over two laps of an outdoor (400-metre) track and has been an Olympic event since the ...

bronze medallist

Djabir Saïd-Guerni Aïssa Djabir Saïd-Guerni ( ar, عيسى جبير سعيد قرني, born 29 March 1977 in Algiers) is a retired Algerian athlete who predominantly competed in the 800 metres. Saïd-Guerni competed at the 2000 Summer Olympics and 2004 Summer O ...

and

1500 metres The 1500 metres or 1,500-metre run (typically pronounced 'fifteen-hundred metres') is the foremost middle distance track event in athletics. The distance has been contested at the Summer Olympics since 1896 and the World Championships in Athletic ...

runner-up

Ali Saïdi-Sief Ali Saidi-Sief ( ar, علي سعيدي سياف, born March 15, 1978) is an Algerian Olympic runner. His speciality is the 1500 m race, but he took a silver medal in the 2000 Summer Olympics for the 5000 m, losing the gold to Ethiopian athlete ...

. Two Saudi Arabian medallists later became successful seniors: Mukhlid Al-Otaibi (5000 m runner-up here) did a long-distance double at the

2002 Asian Games The 2002 Asian Games ( ko, 2002년 아시아 경기대회/2002년 아시안 게임, Icheoni-nyeon Asia gyeonggi daehoe/Icheoni-nyeon Asian Geim), officially known as the XIV Asian Games ( ko, 제14회 아시아 경기대회/제14회 아시안 � ...

; 15-year-old

Hamdan Al-Bishi Hamdan Odha Al-Bishi ( ar, حمدان عوضه البيشي) (born 5 May 1981 in Bisha) is a Saudi Arabian sprinter. Achievements Personal bests *200 metres – 20.81 s (2004) *400 metres The 400 metres, or 400-meter dash, is a sprint even ...

won a 200 m bronze in Latakia and won numerous medals at Asian level.Asian Championships
GBR Athletics. Retrieved on 2015-02-22. Tunisia's

Sofiane Labidi Sofiane Labidi ( ar, سفيان العبيدي; born 29 September 1977 in Béja) is a Tunisian sprinter who specialises in the 400 metres. He achieved his personal best time of 45.19 seconds in Seville in June 2004. He represented his country at ...

won a 200 m/400 m double and later won African and Arab medals as a senior.African Championships
GBR Athletics. Retrieved on 2015-02-22.

Jean-Claude Rabbath Jean-Claude Rabbath (born 12 July 1977 in Beirut) is a Lebanese high jumper. He finished thirteenth at the 2005 Asian Championships, won the gold medal at the 2006 Asian Games and the silver medal at the 2007 Asian Championships. He also compet ...

, runner-up in the high jump, was Lebanon's first ever medallist at the tournament. In the women's section Algeria's

Baya Rahouli Baya Rahouli ( ar, باية رحولي, born July 27, 1979 in Bab El Oued, Algiers) is an Algerian athlete who competes in the triple jump. She is a former African record holder in this event, and has two African championship titles, beating Fra ...

was dominant: she won the

100 metres The 100 metres, or 100-meter dash, is a sprint race in track and field competitions. The shortest common outdoor running distance, the dash is one of the most popular and prestigious events in the sport of athletics. It has been conteste ...

long jump The long jump is a track and field event in which athletes combine speed, strength and agility in an attempt to leap as far as possible from a takeoff point. Along with the triple jump, the two events that measure jumping for distance as a gr ...

and

triple jump The triple jump, sometimes referred to as the hop, step and jump or the hop, skip and jump, is a track and field event, similar to the long jump. As a group, the two events are referred to as the "horizontal jumps". The competitor runs down th ...

titles, and also a shot put bronze. This versatility continued at the

1997 Pan Arab Games The 8th Pan Arab Games were held in Beirut, Lebanon between July 12 and July 27, 1997. 3253 athletes from 18 countries participated in events in 22 sports. Over 50,000 people gathered in the Sports City in Beirut for the opening ceremony of the e ...

, where she was a quadruple gold medallist. Double sprint medallist

Nahida Touhami Nahida Mahour Bacha Touhami (born 10 February 1978) is an Algerian middle distance runner who specializes in the women's 800 and 1500 metres. Achievements Personal bests *200 metres - 24.85 s (1996) *400 metres - 53.08 s (2003) *800 metres - ...

would also become a senior champion at the Arab Games.

Fatma Lanouar Fatma Lanouar (Arabic language, Arabic: فاطمة لأنور; born March 14, 1978) is a former female middle distance runner from Tunisia. She is best known for twice (2001 and 2005) winning the gold medal at the Mediterranean Games in the women's ...

was a double medallist in middle-distance and was a two-time

Mediterranean Games The Mediterranean Games is a multi-sport event organised by the International Committee of Mediterranean Games (CIJM). It is held every four years among athletes from countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea in Africa, Asia and Europe. The fir ...

champion later in her a career.Mediterranean Games
GBR Athletics. Retrieved on 2015-02-22.

Medal summary

Men

Women

Medal table

References

{{Arab athletics championships Arab Junior Athletics Championships International athletics competitions hosted by Syria Sport in Latakia

1996 in youth sport