The men's shot put was one of four men's throwing events on the

Athletics at the 1964 Summer Olympics At the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, the athletics competition included 36 events, 24 for men and 12 for women. The women's 400 metres and women's pentathlon events were newly introduced at these Games. There were a total number of 1016 particip ...

program in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

. It was held on 17 October 1964. 25 athletes from 15 nations entered, with 3 not starting in the qualification round. The maximum number of athletes per nation had been set at 3 since the 1930 Olympic Congress. The event was won by Dallas Long of the United States, the nation's fifth consecutive and 13th overall victory in the men's shot put. His teammate

Randy Matson James Randel "Randy" Matson (born March 5, 1945) is an American track and field athlete who mostly competed in the shot put. Matson won a silver medal at the 1964 and a gold medal at the 1968 Olympics. Early years The son of Charles and Ellen M ...

took silver, making 1964 the fifth straight Games the Americans had finished one-two. A second consecutive sweep was prevented when Vilmos Varju of Hungary took third over American

Parry O'Brien William Patrick "Parry" O'Brien (January 28, 1932 – April 21, 2007) was an American shot put champion. He competed in four consecutive Summer Olympics where he won two gold medals (1952, 1956) and one silver medal (1960). In his last Olympic c ...

. Long was the sixth man to win two shot put medals (adding to his 1960 bronze); Matson would later become the seventh (winning gold in 1968). O'Brien's fourth place finish kept him from being the first man to win four—he had taken gold in 1952 and 1956 and silver in 1960.

Background

This was the 15th appearance of the event, which is one of 12 athletics events to have been held at every Summer Olympics. Returning finalists from the 1960 Games were silver medalist (and 1952 and 1956 gold medalist)

and bronze medalist Dallas Long of the United States, fourth-place finisher

Viktor Lipsnis Viktor Lipsnis (russian: Виктор Липснис, 6 December 1933 – 25 September 1997) was a Soviet shot putter who won silver medals at the 1958 and 1962 European championships. He competed at the 1960 and 1964 Olympics and finished in f ...

of the Soviet Union, fifth-place finisher

Mike Lindsay Michael Robert Lindsay (2 November 1938 – 11 December 2019) was a British track and field athlete who competed in the discus throw and shot put disciplines. He represented Great Britain at the 1960 Summer Olympics and in the 1964 Summer Oly ...

and eighth-place finisher

Martyn Lucking Martyn Taylor Lucking (born 24 March 1938 in Leigh-on-Sea) is a British former shot putter. Athletics career Lucking competed in the 1960 Summer Olympics and in the 1964 Summer Olympics. He topped the podium for England at the 1962 British Emp ...

of Great Britain, sixth-place finisher

Alfred Sosgórnik Alfred Sosgórnik (16 August 1933 – 8 February 2013) was a Polish athlete. He competed in the men's shot put at the 1960 Summer Olympics and the 1964 Summer Olympics The , officially the and commonly known as Tokyo 1964 ( ja, 東京1 ...

of Poland, eleventh-place finisher

Les Mills Leslie Roy Mills (born 1 November 1934) is a retired New Zealand track and field athlete and politician. He represented New Zealand at the Olympic Games and Commonwealth Games over two decades, competing in the shot put and discus throw. He w ...

of New Zealand, thirteenth-place finisher (and 1956 finalist) Silvano Meconi of Italy, and fourteenth-place finisher

Zsigmond Nagy Zsigmond Nagy (27 July 1937 in Csengőd – 1 March 2010 in Budapest) was a Hungarian shot putter who competed in the 1960 Summer Olympics and in the 1964 Summer Olympics The , officially the and commonly known as Tokyo 1964 ( ja, 東京19 ...

of Hungary. O'Brien was attempting to be the first man to win three gold medals or four medals overall in the shot put, though he was not as dominant as he had been in the 1950s. Long had broken the world record four times since the Rome Games and was favored, with the third American (teenager

) a strong challenger. The Ivory Coast, South Korea, and Morocco each made their debut in the men's shot put. The United States appeared for the 15th time, the only nation to have competed in all Olympic shot put competitions to date.

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 17.80 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, vol. 2, p. 51.

Records

These were the standing world and Olympic records (in metres) prior to the 1964 Summer Olympics.

broke the Olympic record with his third throw of the final, at 19.88 metres. He extended his new record to 20.20 metres, in his fourth throw. Dallas Long, however, throwing in the order immediately after Matson, took over the record with his gold medal throw of 20.33 metres.

Schedule

All times are

Japan Standard Time , or , is the standard time zone in Japan, 9 hours ahead of UTC ( UTC+09:00). Japan does not observe daylight saving time, though its introduction has been debated on several occasions. During World War II, the time zone was often referred to a ...

(

UTC+9 UTC+09:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +09:00. During the Japanese occupations of British Borneo, Burma, Hong Kong, Dutch East Indies, Malaya, Philippines, Singapore, and French Indochina, it was used as a common time with ...

)

Results

Qualification

The qualification standard was 17.80 metres. Each thrower had three attempts to reach that standard.

Final

The scores from the qualification round were ignored for the final. Each thrower received three attempts; the six that had thrown the longest in those three threw another three times each.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Athletics at the 1964 Summer Olympics - Men's shot put Athletics at the 1964 Summer Olympics Shot put at the Olympics Men's events at the 1964 Summer Olympics