Hammer Throw, Men

Coming into London, Hungary’s Krisztián Pars had won 9 of 10 meets, including the 2012 European title. His only major challenger was expected to be world leader Ivan Tikhon of Belarus, but he was pulled from the Games after re-testing of drug samples from the 2004 Olympics and 2005 Worlds, where he had won silver and gold, respectively. Slovenia’s Primož Kozmus, the defending gold medalist, was left as Pars’ major remaining gold medal contender. One other contender was Poland’s Paweł Fajdek, but he did not get past qualifying, just missing with a sector foul of 78+ metres.

Kozmus opened with 78.97 in round one to take an early lead, but on the next throw, Pars went into the lead with 79.14, a lead he would never relinquish. Kozmus fouled his next two throws, and in round three, Pars hammered the ball out to 80.59, which was the eventual gold-medal winning mark. Kozmus improved his mark in round five with 79.36 but stayed in second. Japan’s Koji Murofushi, the 2004 Olympic and 2011 World gold medalist, moved into third in the third round with 78.71 and that held on for a bronze medal. The podium was the same as at the 2011 Worlds, but the order was different, as Murofushi had been first there, with Pars second and Kozmus third.

That was how the event and the results seemed to have ended. In 2015, however, the IOC began re-testing samples from the 2008 Beijing and 2012 London Olympics, using newer, more advanced testing techniques, in an effort to find those who had used performance enhancing drugs (PEDs), but in whom it could not be detected at the time of those Olympics. This was one of the many events affected.

Four athletes in this event were disqualified after they were found to have used turinabol (dehydrochloromethyltestosterone). The top finisher to be DQed was Russian Kirill Ikonnikov, who originally finished fifth. Also disqualified were Dilshod Nazarov (TJK / 10th), Oleksandr Dryhol (UKR / 34th) and Pavel Krivitsky (BLR / 28th), who topped off his turinabol with a stanozolol chaser.