The men's
hammer throw
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 "hammer" used in this sport is not like any of the tools also called by that name. It consis ...
event was part of the
track and field athletics programme at the
1948 Summer Olympics
The 1948 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XIV Olympiad and also known as London 1948) were an international multi-sport event held from 29 July to 14 August 1948 in London, England, United Kingdom. Following a twelve-year hiatus ca ...
. The competition was held on July 31. There were 24 competitors from 17 nations.
[ The maximum number of athletes per nation had been set at 3 since the 1930 Olympic Congress. The final was won by Imre Németh of Hungary.]
Background
This was the 10th appearance of the event, which has been held at every Summer Olympics except 1896. One of the 17 finalists from the pre-war 1936 Games returned: ninth-place finisher Henry Dreyer
Henry Francis Dreyer (February 2, 1911 – May 27, 1986) was an American athlete. He competed in the 1936 and 1948 Summer Olympics as a hammer thrower; his other strong event was the non-Olympic weight throw, in which he broke the world best severa ...
of the United States. The favorite was Imre Németh of Hungary, who had broken the world record two weeks before the Games. His strongest competition consisted of German throwers, who could not compete because Germany was not invited to the Games as a result of World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. Bo Ericson of Sweden was expected to be the biggest contender to Németh.
Competition format
The competition used the two-round format introduced in 1936, with the qualifying round completely separate from the divided final. In qualifying, each athlete received three attempts; those recording a mark of at least 49.00 metres advanced to the final. If fewer than 12 athletes achieved that distance, the top 12 would advance. The results of the qualifying round were then ignored. Finalists received three throws each, with the top six competitors receiving an additional three attempts. The best distance among those six throws counted.[Official Report, p. 273.]
Records
Prior to the competition, the existing world and Olympic records were as follows.
No new world or Olympic records were set during the competition.
Schedule
All times are British Summer Time
During British Summer Time (BST), civil time in the United Kingdom is advanced one hour forward of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), in effect changing the time zone from UTC±00:00 to UTC+01:00, so that mornings have one hour less daylight, and ev ...
(UTC+1
UTC+01:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +01:00. In ISO 8601, the associated time would be written as 2019-02-07T23:28:34+01:00. This time is used in:
*Central European Time
*West Africa Time
*Western European Summer Time
** B ...
)
Results
Qualifying
Qual. rule: qualification standard 49.00m (Q) or at least best 12 qualified (q).
Final
References
External links
*Organising Committee for the XIV Olympiad, The (1948)
The Official Report of the Organising Committee for the XIV Olympiad
''LA84 Foundation
The LA84 Foundation (known until June 2007 as the Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles) is a private, nonprofit institution created by the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee to manage Southern California's endowment from the 1984 Olym ...
''. Retrieved 5 September 2016.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Athletics At The 1948 Summer Olympics - Men's Hammer Throw
Athletics at the 1948 Summer Olympics
Hammer throw at the Olympics
Men's events at the 1948 Summer Olympics