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.
Dame Valerie Kasanita Adams is a retired New Zealand shot putter. She is a four-time World champion, four-time World Indoor champion, two-time Olympic, three-time Commonwealth Games champion and twice IAAF Continental Cup winner. She has a personal best throw of 21.24 metres (69.7 ft) outdoors and 20.98 metres (68.8 ft) indoors. These marks are Oceanian, Commonwealth and New Zealand national records. She also holds the Oceanian junior record (18.93 m) and the Oceanian youth record (17.54 m), as well as the World Championships record, World Indoor Championships record and Commonwealth Games record.
Luis Mariano Delís Fournier is a retired Cuban athlete who competed in discus throw and shot put. Specializing in discus throw on the international scene, he won an Olympic bronze medal in 1980 as well as medals at the two first World Championships.
Nadzeya Astapchuk is a Belarusian shot putter. She briefly was designated the Olympic Champion in 2012, but was subsequently stripped of the title for failing a drug test and the gold medal was awarded to New Zealand shot putter Valerie Adams. She was World Champion in 2005, but in March 2013, the IAAF reported that her drug test sample from that event had been retested and found to be positive.
Andrei Anatolyevich Mikhnevich is a Belarusian shot putter with a personal best of 21.69 metres, set in 2003. In 2013 he was banned from sports for life due to his second doping positive.
Tomasz Majewski is a Polish shot putter and a double Olympic gold medalist. He is the third shot putter to successfully defend the Olympic title, first European to do so, and the first since Parry O'Brien in 1956. He also won the silver medal at the 2009 World Athletics Championships and gold medal at the 2010 European Athletics Championships.
Anatoliy Pavlovych Bondarchuk is a retired Ukrainian hammer thrower who competed for the Soviet Union. An Olympic gold medallist, he is also regarded as one of the most accomplished hammer throw coaches of all time. He is the author of a two-volume book Transfer of Training, which was translated from Russian to English by Michael Yessis.
The men's shot put at the Athens 2004 Summer Olympics was held on August 18, 2004, at the Ancient Olympia Stadium in Olympia, Greece. It was originally planned to hold the discus throw at this venue, but it was discovered that the field was insufficiently large to accommodate the range of modern discus throwers, and would have posed a danger to spectators. As such, it was decided instead to hold the shot put at the site, despite the fact that the shot put was not contested at the Ancient Olympic Games. All distances are given in metres. Thirty-nine athletes from 26 nations competed.
The men's shot put event at the 2008 Olympic Games took place on 15 August at the Beijing Olympic Stadium. Forty-four athletes from 34 nations competed. The event was won by Tomasz Majewski of Poland, the nation's first victory in the men's shot put since 1972. Christian Cantwell of the United States took silver, the seventh consecutive Games in which an American finished first or second.
Natallia Mikhnevich is a Belarusian shot putter.
Sultana Frizell is a Canadian track and field athlete competing in the hammer throw. Frizell currently trains under the guidance of Derek Evely in Kamloops, British Columbia. She competed at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing and the 2012 Olympic Games in London. Frizell is the former Commonwealth Games champion in the hammer throw and Commonwealth Games record holder for the event as well.
Yojer Enrique Medina is a Venezuelan shot putter and discus thrower.
Zbigniew "Bishop" Dolegiewicz was a Canadian professional track and field athlete and coach who specialized in the shot put and the discus throw.
Yevgeniya Nikolayevna Kolodko is a retired Russian shot putter.
Timothy "Tim" Nedow is a Canadian track and field athlete who competes in the shot put and discus throw. He has personal bests of 21.33 m in the shot put and 61.49 m in the discus throw. He was the bronze medalist at the 2014 Commonwealth Games and the 2013 Francophonie Games and a five-time champion of the Canadian Track and Field Championships. He has also competed at the World Championships in Athletics, in 2013, and twice at the Summer Universiade. He studied and competed athletically at the University of Tulsa and DePaul University.
Sergey Kasnauskas is a Belarusian former track and field athlete who competed in the shot put for the Soviet Union. As of 2016, he places within the world top 25 all-time for the event.
Sarah Dawn Mitton is a Canadian athlete specializing in the shot put. She is the 2023 World silver medallist and 2024 World Indoor champion, the first Canadian woman to medal in the shot put at either World Athletics global championship. As well, she is the 2023 Pan American, 2022 Commonwealth, and 2019 Summer Universiade champion.
Camryn Rogers is a Canadian athlete specializing in the hammer throw. She is the reigning Olympic and World champion in that discipline, in both cases the first Canadian woman to win that title, and only the second Canadian woman to win gold at the World Athletics Championships in any discipline. Her Olympic gold medal was the first for a Canadian woman in track and field in 96 years.
Adam Keenan is a Canadian track and field athlete specializing in the hammer throw.
Ethan Katzberg is a Canadian hammer thrower. He is the reigning Olympic and world champion in that event, winning gold in Paris at the 2024 Summer Olympics and in Budapest at the 2023 World Championships. He is also the 2023 Pan American champion and the 2022 Commonwealth Games silver medallist.
