The men's shot put was an event at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, Australia.

During that fifth round, Ken Bantum briefly moved into bronze medal position with a 17.48m putting the American team in a position to sweep the event for the second time in a row, before Skobla threw three additional cm past him.

[3] O'Brien's victory was the third consecutive and 11th overall victory for an American shot putter; O'Brien was the fourth man to win two shot put medals and the second man to win two gold medals.

Returning finalists from the 1952 Games were gold medalist Parry O'Brien of the United States and ninth-place finisher Jiří Skobla of Czechoslovakia.

The United States appeared for the 13th time, the only nation to have competed in all Olympic shot put competitions to date.

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 15.00 metres advanced to the final.