Athletics at the 2004 Summer Olympics – Men's discus throw

The men's discus throw competition at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens was held at the Olympic Stadium on 21–23 August. It was originally planned to hold the discus throw at the Ancient Olympia Stadium, but it was discovered that the field was not large enough to accommodate the range of modern discus throwers, and would have posed a danger to spectators. As such, it was decided to move the discus throw and to hold the shot put at the ancient stadium, despite the fact that the shot put was not contested at the Ancient Olympic Games. Thirty-nine athletes from 26 nations competed.

Hungary's Róbert Fazekas had initially finished first in the final but committed an anti-doping breach for failing to submit a proper urine sample during the drug test and was thereby not allowed to present his gold in the medal ceremony, resulting in his disqualification. Lithuania's Virgilijus Alekna, who originally placed second in the final, eventually defended his Olympic title at the time of the medal ceremony and was followed by Fazekas' teammate Zoltán Kővágó for the silver and Estonia's Aleksander Tammert for the bronze. Alekna became the 14th man to win multiple medals in the discus throw, and the 4th to win multiple gold medals—matching Martin Sheridan and Bud Houser, but still well behind Al Oerter's four championships. Kővágó's medal was Hungary's first medal in the event since Rudolf Bauer won gold in 1900. Tammert's bronze was Estonia's first men's discus throw medal.

Background

This was the 25th appearance of the event, which is one of 12 athletics events to have been held at every Summer Olympics. The returning finalists from the 2000 Games were gold medalist (and 1996 finalist) Virgilijus Alekna of Lithuania, silver medalist (and 1996 gold medalist) Lars Riedel of Germany, bronze medalist Frantz Kruger of South Africa, fourth-place finisher Vasiliy Kaptyukh of Belarus, sixth-place finisher Jason Tunks of Canada, ninth-place finisher Aleksander Tammert of Estonia, tenth-place finisher Michael Möllenbeck of Germany, and eleventh-place finisher Dmitriy Shevchenko of Russia. Alekna was also the reigning world champion and runner-up in the 2002 European championship. The European winner was Hungarian Róbert Fazekas; he and Alekna were the favorites in Athens.

Moldova made its debut in the men's discus throw. The United States made its 24th appearance, most of any nation, having missed only the boycotted 1980 Games.

Qualification

The qualification period for Athletics was 1 January 2003 to 9 August 2004. For the men's discus throw, each National Olympic Committee was permitted to enter up to three athletes who had thrown 64.00 metres or further during the qualification period. The maximum number of athletes per nation had been set at 3 since the 1930 Olympic Congress. If an NOC had no athletes that qualified under that standard, one athlete who had thrown 62.55 metres or further could be entered.

Competition format

Each athlete received three throws in the qualifying round. All who achieved the qualifying distance progressed to the final. If fewer than twelve athletes achieved this mark, then the twelve furthest throwing athletes reached the final. Each finalist was allowed three throws in the last round, with the top eight athletes after that point being given three further attempts.

Records

Prior to the competitionTemplate:Dated maintenance category (articles), the existing world and Olympic records were as follows.

World record	Template:Flagathlete	74.08	Neubrandenburg, East Germany	6 June 1986
Olympic record	Template:FlagIOCathlete	69.40	Atlanta, United States	31 July 1996

Virgilijus Alekna broke the Olympic record with his first throw in the final, marked at 69.89 metres. His only other legal throw, his fifth, surpassed the old record but not the new one, at 69.49 metres. Róbert Fazekas was the first man to throw over 70 metres in Olympic competition, but his disqualification for doping meant that his 70.93 metres throw was not counted as a record.

Schedule

All times are Greece Standard Time (UTC+2)

Date	Time	Round
Saturday, 21 August 2004	9:00	Qualifying
Monday, 23 August 2004	20:20	Final

Results

Qualifying round

Rule: Qualifying standard 64.50 (Q) or at least best 12 qualified (q).

Rank	Group	Athlete	Nation	1	2	3	Distance	Notes
1	B	Róbert Fazekas	Template:FlagIOC	63.88	68.10		68.10	Q, DPG
2	A	Virgilijus Alekna	Template:FlagIOC		63.80	67.79	67.79	Q
3	A	Aleksander Tammert	Template:FlagIOC	65.70			65.70	Q
4	B	Lars Riedel	Template:FlagIOC	64.20			64.20	Q
5	A	Hannes Hopley	Template:FlagIOC	62.71	62.50	63.89	63.89	q
6	A	Gabor Mate	Template:FlagIOC	57.40	62.43	63.41	63.41	q
7	A	Torsten Schmidt	Template:FlagIOC	56.86	60.63	63.40	63.40	q
8	B	Casey Malone	Template:FlagIOC	59.99	63.27	61.83	63.27	q
9	B	Vasiliy Kaptyukh	Template:FlagIOC	63.04		62.93	63.04	q
10	B	Frantz Kruger	Template:FlagIOC	60.91	62.32		62.32	q
11	A	Libor Malina	Template:FlagIOC	60.54		62.12	62.12	q
12	B	Zoltán Kővágó	Template:FlagIOC		61.91	60.77	61.91	q
13	B	Mario Pestano	Template:FlagIOC			61.69	61.69
14	A	Jarred Rome	Template:FlagIOC	59.35		61.55	61.55
15	B	Vikas Gowda	Template:FlagIOC	61.35	61.39	59.87	61.39
16	A	Jason Tunks	Template:FlagIOC	61.21	60.02	60.34	61.21
17	B	Rutger Smith	Template:FlagIOC		61.11		61.11
18	A	Frank Casañas	Template:FlagIOC	60.15	60.60	57.27	60.60
19	B	Wu Tao	Template:FlagIOC	48.96		60.60	60.60
20	A	Gerd Kanter	Template:FlagIOC		60.05		60.05
21	B	Michael Möllenbeck	Template:FlagIOC	56.42	59.79		59.79
22	A	Ian Waltz	Template:FlagIOC	58.97	58.55	57.52	58.97
23	B	Savvas Panavoglou	Template:FlagIOC	57.26	58.47	57.62	58.47
24	B	Aliaksandr Malashevich	Template:FlagIOC		57.67	58.45	58.45
25	A	Emeka Udechuku	Template:FlagIOC		58.41	55.79	58.41
26	B	Aleksandr Borichevskiy	Template:FlagIOC	58.12	58.19	57.86	58.19
27	B	Ercüment Olgundeniz	Template:FlagIOC	57.13	58.17		58.17
28	A	Leonid Cherevko	Template:FlagIOC	57.98		57.89	57.98
29	B	Abbas Samimi	Template:FlagIOC	57.57		56.24	57.57
30	B	Lois Maikel Martínez	Template:FlagIOC	57.18	57.10		57.18
31	B	Igor Primc	Template:FlagIOC	55.70	56.33	55.43	56.33
32	A	Marcelo Pugliese	Template:FlagIOC		56.06	54.45	56.06
33	A	Vadim Hranovschi	Template:FlagIOC	53.77	52.30	55.64	55.64
34	B	Omar Ahmed El Ghazaly	Template:FlagIOC		55.53	55.27	55.53
35	A	Dragan Mustapic	Template:FlagIOC	54.66			54.66
36	A	Jaroslav Žitňanský	Template:FlagIOC	53.30		51.87	53.30
37	B	Shaka Sola	Template:FlagIOC	50.36	51.10	50.97	51.10
—	A	Anil Kumar	Template:FlagIOC
	A	Dmitriy Shevchenko	Template:FlagIOC

Final

Rank	Athlete	Nation	1	2	3	4	5	6	Distance	Notes
	Virgilijus Alekna	Template:FlagIOC	69.89 Template:OlyR				69.49		69.89	Template:OlyR
	Zoltán Kővágó	Template:FlagIOC	57.31	66.40	66.03	67.04	58.25		67.04
	Aleksander Tammert	Template:FlagIOC	66.66		64.28	63.95	64.04		66.66
4	Vasiliy Kaptyukh	Template:FlagIOC	65.10	59.82	62.88	63.44	64.89	63.63	65.10
5	Frantz Kruger	Template:FlagIOC	64.34		61.01	62.53		60.73	64.34
6	Casey Malone	Template:FlagIOC	62.80	60.34		64.33	62.73	63.65	64.33
7	Lars Riedel	Template:FlagIOC		62.80					62.80
8	Hannes Hopley	Template:FlagIOC	60.18	61.99	62.58	Did not advance			62.58
9	Torsten Schmidt	Template:FlagIOC		61.18	61.10	Did not advance			61.18
10	Libor Malina	Template:FlagIOC	57.39		58.78	Did not advance			58.78
11	Gabor Mate	Template:FlagIOC	57.02		57.84	Did not advance			57.84
—	Róbert Fazekas	Template:FlagIOC	66.39	70.93	69.35	68.92	67.64		70.93	DPG

External links

• Official Olympic Report