Athletics at the 1948 Summer Olympics – Men's hammer throw

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 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. Bo Ericson of Sweden was expected to be the biggest contender to Németh.[1]

India and South Korea each made their debut in the event. The United States appeared for the 10th time, the only nation to have competed at each appearance of the event to that point.

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.[1][3]

Prior to the competition, the existing world and Olympic records were as follows.

World record	Imre Németh (HUN)	59.02	Tata, Hungary	14 July 1948
Olympic record	Karl Hein (GER)	56.49	Berlin, Germany	3 August 1936

No new world or Olympic records were set during the competition.

All times are British Summer Time (UTC+1)

• Organising Committee for the XIV Olympiad, The (1948). The Official Report of the Organising Committee for the XIV Olympiad. LA84 Foundation. Retrieved 5 September 2016.