Before this Olympics Djibouti had not won a medal. Hussein Ahmed Salah won the county's first Olympic medal. Ahmed Salah won a bronze medal in the men's marathon. Ahmed Salah won the medal with a time of two hours, ten minutes and fifty-nine seconds, only twenty-seven seconds behind the gold medalist. Ahmed Salah finished the qualification for this event in 2:07:07, breaking the previous world record of 2:07:12. The record was also broken by Carlos Lopes, who finished faster than Salah. Lopes became the new world record holder. 