The men's hammer throw at the 2008 Summer Olympics took place on 15 August (qualifying) and 17 (final) at the Beijing National Stadium.

The original silver and bronze medalists, Vadim Devyatovskiy and Ivan Tsikhan of Belarus, were disqualified in December 2008 for testing positive for abnormal levels of testosterone.

[4] In June 2010 the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled that the disqualified Belarusians should get their original medals back due to errors at the Chinese medical lab.

Tsikhan was also the three-time reigning (2003, 2005, 2007) World Champion (though the 2005 result would be stripped), with Kozmus the runner-up and Charfreitag third.

The competition used the two-round format introduced in 1936, with the qualifying round completely separate from the divided final.