At the beginning of the 20th century, foreign missionaries brought modern track and field to China. At that time, track and field competitions were only held between schools founded by the church, and then gradually expanded to national and private schools throughout the country. 1932 China participated in 10 Olympic Games for the first time. At that time, China sprinter Liu Changchun had reached the world level. However, due to lack of funds, he took part in the 100-meter preliminaries on the third day after arriving in LA, and only finished fifth in the group with the score of 1 1 sec, failing to enter the next round. In the 200m race, Liu Changchun runs in 22 seconds 1. Although he finished fourth in the group, he failed to enter the semi-finals. After the competition, Liu Changchun was able to return to the motherland with the donation of local overseas Chinese.

After the founding of New China, track and field sports became popular and the technical level improved rapidly. Since 1953, large-scale national track and field games have been held almost every year. On the basis of extensive mass sports, the technical level and achievements of track and field in China have shortened the international gap. 1956 Zheng, a female high jumper, broke the world record of 1.76 meters at that time with a score of 1.77 meters. In 1960s, China 10 project entered the world's top 10 projects. During the period of 1983, at the 5th National Games held in Shanghai, Zhu Jianhua set a new world record of 2.37 meters with a score of 2.38 meters. In the same year, Xu Yongjiu set a world record for women's race walking with a score of 45' 13'4, becoming the first track and field athlete in China to win the world championship. In 1990s, with the rise of Wang, she created many world records for women's middle and long distance running, and Wang was also awarded the title of "Asian Deer". In 2000, China's athlete Wang Liping won the gold medal in the 20-kilometer race walk, and in 2004, Liu Xiang won the 1 10 hurdles at the Athens Olympic Games.