Venue Olympic Stadium Competitors 35 from 24 nations | Dates 20–22 August Winning distance 82.91 | |
The men's hammer throw competition at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens was held at the Olympic Stadium on 20–22 August.
Contents
The competition had originally been won by Adrián Annus of Hungary but soon after he was found guilty of tampering with his sample at the doping control and subsequently lost his gold medal. The original runner-up Koji Murofushi was elevated to the status of 2004 Olympic champion.
Silver medal winner Ivan Tsikhan had his samples from 2004 retested in May 2012. A banned substance was found, and he withdrew from the 2012 Summer Olympics as a result, stripping of his silver medal on December 5, 2012, after drug re-testings of his sample on methandienone had been discovered positive. Tsikhan was stripped of his silver medal on 5 December 2012 after drug re-tests of their samples were found positive. No decision was taken on reallocation of medals, leaving the only medallists as Murofushi with gold and Eşref Apak of Turkey with the bronze. The athlete in a position to be elevated to the Olympic bronze medal, Vadim Devyatovskiy of Belarus, has previously been subject to a court case by the International Olympic Committee regarding doping at the 2008 Summer Olympics.
Competition format
Each athlete receives three throws in the qualifying round. All who achieve the qualifying distance progress to the final. If less than twelve athletes achieve this mark, then the twelve furthest throwing athletes reach the final. Each finalist is allowed three throws in last round, with the top eight athletes after that point being given three further attempts.
Schedule
All times are Greece Standard Time (UTC+2)
Records
Prior to the competition, the existing World and Olympic records were as follows.
No new records were set during the competition.
Qualifying round
Rule: Qualifying standard 78.00 (Q) or at least best 12 qualified (q).