The hammer throw is one of the four throwing events in regular track and field competitions, along with the discus throw, shot put and javelin.
The 10th World Championships in Athletics, under the auspices of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), were held in the Olympic Stadium, Helsinki, Finland, the site of the first IAAF World Championships in 1983. One theme of the 2005 championships was paralympic events, some of which were included as exhibition events. Much of the event was played in extremely heavy rainfall.
The World Athletics U20 Championships is a biennial world championships for the sport of athletics organised by the World Athletics, contested by athletes in the under-20 athletics age category (19 years old or younger on 31 December in the year of the competition.
Yipsi Moreno González is a Cuban hammer thrower. She is a triple world champion and Olympic gold medalist, a former world junior record holder and current area record holder.
Ivan Ryhoravich Tsikhan is a Belarusian hammer thrower. He is a two-time world champion and an Olympic medalist.
Yunaika Crawford Rogert is a Cuban hammer thrower who won the Olympic bronze medal in 2004 with a personal best throw of 73.16 metres.
The Men's Hammer Throw event at the 2005 World Championships in Athletics was held at the Helsinki Olympic Stadium on August 6 and August 8.
Tatyana Viktorovna Lysenko is a Russian hammer thrower. Her career has been blighted by repeated doping infractions. In February 2019, the Court of Arbitration for Sport handed her an eight-year ban for doping, starting from 2 July 2016.
Dilshod Jamoliddinovich Nazarov is a Tajik track and field athlete who specializes in the hammer throw. He has represented his country at the Olympic Games on four occasions, winning the gold medal in Rio de Janeiro, the first gold medal for Tajikistan in the history of the Olympic Games.
The Women's Hammer Throw event at the 2007 World Championships in Athletics took place on August 28, 2007 (qualification) and August 30, 2007 (final) at the Nagai Stadium in Osaka, Japan. The qualification standard was set at 71.00 metres.
The men's hammer throw at the 2008 Summer Olympics took place on 15 August (qualifying) and 17 (final) at the Beijing National Stadium. There were 33 competitors from 26 nations. The event was won by Primož Kozmus of Slovenia, the nation's first medal in the event.
Anita Włodarczyk is a Polish hammer thrower. She is the 2012, 2016 and 2020 Olympic champion, and the first woman in history to throw the hammer over 80 m; she currently holds the women's world record of 82.98 m. She is considered the greatest women's hammer thrower of all time.
The Men's Hammer Throw event at the 2009 World Championships in Athletics was held at the Olympic Stadium on August 15 and August 17. With reigning champion Ivan Tsikhan banned from competition for doping offences, the 2008 Olympic gold and silver medallists Primož Kozmus and Krisztián Pars were the favourites in the event. Pars entered the competition with a world-leading throw of 81.43 m and an 18 competition win-streak. Belarusian Yuriy Shayunov and Russian Aleksey Zagornyi, the only other athletes to have thrown over eighty metres twice that season prior to the championships, were identified as possible podium finishers. Nicola Vizzoni, Igor Sokolov, Olli-Pekka Karjalainen, Szymon Ziółkowski, Koji Murofushi, and Libor Charfreitag were all predicted to have an outside chance of a medal.
The men's hammer throw at the 2015 World Championships in Athletics was held at the Beijing National Stadium on 22 and 23 August.
The women's hammer throw at the 2015 World Championships in Athletics was held at the Beijing National Stadium on 26 and 27 August.
The women's hammer throw at the 2017 World Championships in Athletics was held at the Olympic Stadium on 5 and 7 August.
The men's hammer throw event at the 2020 Summer Olympics took place between 2 and 4 August 2021 at the Japan National Stadium. Approximately 35 athletes were expected to compete; the exact number was dependent on how many nations used universality places to enter athletes in addition to the 32 qualifying through distance or ranking. 31 athletes from 21 nations competed. Wojciech Nowicki of Poland won the gold medal, adding to his 2016 bronze to become the 15th man to earn multiple hammer throw medals. It was Poland's second gold medal in the event, after Szymon Ziółkowski's 2000 victory. Nowicki's countryman Paweł Fajdek took bronze. Between them was Norwegian thrower Eivind Henriksen, with his silver being Norway's first-ever Olympic medal in the men's hammer.
The men's hammer throw at the 2019 World Athletics Championships was held at the Khalifa International Stadium in Doha, Qatar, from 1 to 2 October 2019.
