Gold medal distances in the hammer throw at the Summer Olympics 1900-2020

The hammer throw has been included in all Olympic Games as a men's event since 1900, and the women's event was introduced one hundred years later, at the Sydney Games in 2000. The men's hammer weighs 7.26 kilograms and is 1.21 meters in length, while the women's hammer weighs 4 kilograms and is 1.19 meters in length. The traditional technique involves athletes standing still and swinging the ball over their head twice to build some momentum, before swinging the ball while rotating their body four or five times, gradually moving towards the field boundary, in order to build up as much speed and power as possible before releasing the hammer.

The Olympic records are currently held by the Soviet Union's Sergey Litvinov, with a throw of 84.8 meters in 1988, and Anita Włodarczyk of Poland, with a throw of 82.29 meters in 2016. Włodarczyk also holds the women's world record of 82.98 meters (she was the first woman to throw more than 80 meters), while Yuriy Sedykh throw of 86.74 meters for the Soviet Union in 1986 still stands as the men's world record. In the early Olympic Games, the United States dominated the event, taking gold in the first six hammer throw events, however (ex-)Soviet and Eastern European athletes have dominated the sport since the Second World War. The US' John Flanagan won the first three gold medals, and remains the only athlete to ever win more than two Olympic golds in the men's event. Anita Włodarczyk matched this feat, winning three consecutive gold medals between 2012 and 2020, cementing her status as the greatest hammer thrower of all time.