Maryam Yusuf Jamal is an Ethiopian-born Bahraini middle-distance runner. She is the first Bahraini athlete to win an Olympic medal, a gold in the 1,500m women's race, in the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. This was also the first Olympic medal won by a woman representing a Gulf state. Born in Ethiopia, 2005 was her first full season. She gained the national record and ran the fastest 3000 m of the year, with a time of 8:28.87 at a race in Oslo. Jamal is a two-time world champion in the 1,500 m, having won at the 2007 and 2009 World Championships in Athletics.

The women's 1500 metres competition was an event at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, United Kingdom. The competition was held at the Olympic Stadium from 6–10 August. The top two finishers were later found to have used prohibited drugs during this period, and subsequently disqualified. The current silver medalist, Tatyana Tomashova, had served a two-year doping ban (2008–2010) for manipulating samples and was banned after the Olympics for failing another drug test; and the 7th-place finisher Natallia Kareiva and the 9th-place finisher Yekaterina Kostetskaya were later disqualified after being found guilty of doping.