Athletics at the 2016 Summer Olympics – Men's hammer throw
| Men's hammer throw at the Games of the XXXI Olympiad
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| Venue | Olympic Stadium | ||||||||||||
| Date | 17–19 August 2016 | ||||||||||||
| Competitors | 32 from 24 nations | ||||||||||||
| Winning distance | 78.68 m | ||||||||||||
| Medalists | |||||||||||||
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Dilshod Nazarov |
 Tajikistan
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Ivan Tsikhan |
 Belarus
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Wojciech Nowicki |
 Poland
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The men's hammer throw competition at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The event was held at the Olympic Stadium between 17–19 August.
The hammer throw was an event that experienced a lot of problems. Initially the IAAF set the entry standard at 78.00 meters. With the ban of the Russian team from the Olympics, eliminating three top throwers in the world (and their potentially drug affected performances throwing off the bell curve), the IAAF had to lower the qualification standard to 77.00 meters. Still there were not sufficient qualified athletes to fill the quota of entries. Three American throwers Conor McCullough, Kibwé Johnson and Rudy Winkler, whose best marks were just below 77 meters, along with Amanmurad Hommadov, Javier Cienfuegos and Esref Apak were invited to fill the quota. Number 4 in the world qualifying Mostafa Al-Gamel and number 10 in 2016, Oleksandr Drygol did not enter. Drygol is a 50 year old, former Soviet thrower who switched his citizenship from Ukraine to Israel in 2016 in order to enter the Olympics. Dryhol would have been the oldest track and field athlete should have he competed.
With 76.50 m set as the automatic qualifying mark, only two athletes were able to manage the distance. One of them was 40 year old Ivan Tsikhan, who was previously stripped of a 2004 Olympic medal for doping and is only able to compete due to a second violation being overturned by the Court of Arbitration for Sport on a procedural technicality. Number one in the world, with the top 24 performances (meaning 24 separate meets) over the last two years, Paweł Fajdek, did not get out of the qualifying round, only managing 72.00 m to finish in 17th place. Highly ranked throwers Pavel Bareisha and Roberto Janet also did not get out of qualifying.
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