Dilshod Nazarov of Tajikistan is the Olympic champion in the men’s hammer throw. He tossed the hammer 78.68 meters to win his first Olympic gold.
Olympics 2016: Dilshod Nazarov wins gold in men’s hammer throw
The Tajikistan athlete brought home a win in the hammer.
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The hammer throw is the event in which athletes spin and hurl a 16-pound iron ball attached to a metal string. The athletes can really chuck the apparatus -- the world record is 86.74 meters. While the hammer wasn’t thrown that far in Rio, it was still a thrilling competition.
Ivan Tsikhan of Belarus took second to win the silver with a throw of 77.79 and Wojciech Nowicki of Poland had a bronze medal throw of 77.73 meters. Tsikhan had won the silver medal in the 2004 hammer throw, but he tested positive for PEDs after the event and was disqualified.
Krisztián Pars of Hungary won gold in 2012, but he settled for seventh this time around with a throw five meters shorter than he’d done in London. Paweł Fajdek of Poland had the best throw in the world this year heading into the Olympics, but he failed to qualify for the final. Brazil’s Wagner Domingos took 12th place in front of his home crowd.
No Americans qualified for the final. The U.S. once dominated the event, winning gold the first six times the hammer throw was contested at the Olympics. But Team USA hasn’t won gold since 1956 and has only one medal since then, when Lance Deal won silver on home soil in the 1996 Olympics.
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