Eric Randolph Barnes is an American former shot putter who held the outdoor world record for the event from 1990 to 2021. He won silver at the 1988 Olympics and gold at the 1996 Olympics. Only three throwers have been within 40 centimetres (16 in) of his outdoor world record since it was set.
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.
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.
Larisa Alexandrovna Peleshenko is a retired Russian shot putter best known for winning the Olympic silver medal in 2000. In her early career she won European Indoor silver medals, but in February 1995 she received a four-year drugs ban. Having originally won the 1995 World Indoor Championships, she lost the medal. She won the 2001 Indoor Championships and finished fourth at the World Championships the same year, and retired at the end of the season.
Christian Cantwell is a World Champion American shot putter. He won a silver medal at the 2008 Summer Olympics and placed 4th at the 2012 Summer Olympics.
Kory Merrill Tarpenning is a retired American pole vaulter best known for finishing fourth at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, having previously competed at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul.
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.
Burger Lambrechts is a South African shot putter.
Georg Andersen is a Norwegian shot putter. He represented IK Grane, IK Tjalve and Urædd Friidrett.
Gary Jay Gubner was an American heavyweight weightlifter, shot putter and discus thrower. He had his best results in weightlifting, winning two world championship medals in 1962 and 1965 and placing fourth at the 1964 Summer Olympics. He also attempted to qualify for the 1964 Olympics in throwing events, and finished fifth in the shot put at the U.S. Olympic trials. Gubner set several shot put records, including a 53-foot throw with a 16-lb. ball when he was 16, and three world indoor records in 1962. His best result of 19.80 m placed him second in the 1962 world ranking.
Dylan Armstrong is a Canadian athletics coach and retired competitive shot putter. He is the 2008 Olympic bronze medallist, a two-time World Athletics Championships medallist, a two-time Pan American Games champion, and the 2010 Commonwealth Games champion in that discipline. He was awarded his Olympic bronze medal in 2015, seven years after the event, following the doping disqualification of competitor Andrei Mikhnevich.
The men's shot put was an event at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain. There were 26 participating athletes from 18 nations. The maximum number of athletes per nation had been set at 3 since the 1930 Olympic Congress. The event took place on 31 July 1992. The event was won by Mike Stulce of the United States, the nation's first victory in the men's shot put since 1968. His countryman Jim Doehring took silver. Vyacheslav Lykho of the Unified Team earned bronze, the first medal for a Soviet or former Soviet athlete in the event since 1980.
Peter Dajia is a Canadian shot putter.
Tomas Walsh is a New Zealand athlete who competes mainly in the shot put. He is the current national record holder both outdoors and indoors for the event. His personal best of 22.90 m, set in Doha, 5 October 2019, is also the Oceanian record and makes him the seventh best shot putter in history.
Klaus Bodenmüller is an Austrian former track and field athlete who competed in the shot put. He is Austria's best ever performer in the event and holds the Austrian records at 20.79 m outdoors and 21.03 m indoors.
Simon Alexander Williams is a male British former shot putter and discus thrower. He was the gold medallist in the shot put at the 1990 Commonwealth Games. He also represented Great Britain in the discus at the 1991 World Championships in Athletics and the 1992 Summer Olympics.
Sergey Valentinovich Smirnov was a Russian track and field athlete who competed in the shot put. He was a medallist at the IAAF World Indoor Championships in 1987 and at the European Athletics Indoor Championships in 1986 and 1987. Smirnov represented the Soviet Union at the 1988 Seoul Olympics and at the 1983 World Championships in Athletics.
Ryan Crouser is an American track and field athlete who competes in the shot put and discus. He specializes in the shot put, in which he is the only three-time Olympic gold medalist, having won in Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo and Paris, and also a two-time World Champion. He holds the world record in the shot put, both indoors and outdoors. He set the outdoor world record at 23.56 meters in May 2023, improving upon his previous record of 23.37 m from July 2021. He has held the indoor record of 22.82 m since January 2021.
Raven "Hulk" Saunders is an American track and field athlete who competes in shot put. They were the silver medalist in women's shot put at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, throwing a distance of 19.79 m. They won four NCAA collegiate titles in shot put, both indoor and outdoor, at Southern Illinois University and University of Mississippi. They were a world junior silver medalist in 2014 and the Pan American junior champion in 2015. Saunders finished 11th in women's shot put at the 2024 Paris Olympics, throwing a distance of 17.79 m. They hold a personal record of 19.96 m for the shot put.
