Men’s hammer throw competition will begin at the 2017 IAAF World Championships in London August 9 and Tajikistan believes in Rio Olympics champion Dilshod Nazarov.

Dilshod Nazarov (born 6 May 1982) is a Tajikistani track and field athlete who specializes in the hammer throw.  He has represented his country at the Olympic Games on four occasions (in 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016), winning the gold medal in Rio de Janeiro, the first gold medal for Tajikistan in the history of the Olympic Games.

He has competed six times at the World Championships in Athletics (2005 to 2015), but has been most successful at regional competitions: he won medals at five consecutive Asian Athletics Championships and was the hammer champion at the Asian Games in 2006, 2010, 2014 and 2017. He won his first global medal (a silver) in 2010 at the IAAF Continental Cup.

His personal best for the event is 80.71 meters, set in 2013.

Meanwhile, a report posted on IAAF’s website says that in possession of the eight longest throws in the world in 2017 and three meters clear at the top of the 2017 world list, it would be hard to bet against Poland's Pawel Fajdek retaining his title in London and making it three consecutive world victories after striking gold in Moscow in 2013 and Beijing in 2015.

However, despite his World Championships record, the Pole reportedly experienced a big dent to his armor when failing to qualify for the final at the Olympics in Rio last year.  In 2017, after 12 consecutive wins – 10 of which were beyond 80m – he was beaten at his National Championships by Wojciech Nowicki, 80.47m to 78.64m.

Although short of his best so far in 2017, it would be foolish to discard Dilshod Nazarov based on his experience and major championships record, the website says, noting that the athlete from Tajikistan took silver in 2015, before going one better to take gold in the Rio.

According to the website, another athlete able to draw on his wealth of experience is 2011 and 2013 world silver medalist Krisztian Pars of Hungary, although the 35-year-old would need to significantly improve his season's best of 76.84m in order to feature.  Esraf Apak from Turkey is another 35-year-old who can call on experience. Although since taking Olympic silver in Athens 2004, he has only once qualified for a major championships final, and has thrown 78.00m in 2017.

Third on the world list is neutral athlete Valeriy Pronkin.  The 23-year-old has thrown a personal best of 78.90m this year, but is inexperienced in major championships and is yet to really prove his mettle.  World U20 champion Bence Halasz of Hungary has also thrown a big personal best of 78.85m this year for fourth on the world list and could well feature.

Other contenders include Belarusian pair Pavel Bareisha (78.04m) and Siarhei Kalamoyets (77.52m), Slovakia's Marcel Lomnicky (77.92m) and Moldova's Serghei Marghiev (77.70m).

As is often the case, it appears relatively certain that the event will be dominated by European athletes. Aside from Nazarov, Brazil's Wagner Domingos looks likely to be the best of the rest of the world, sitting 16th on the world list, the website said.

The 2017 IAAF World Championships are the 16th edition currently being held in London from August 4 to 13.  London was officially awarded the Championships by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), in Monaco, on 11 November 2011.

The championships are being held in the Olympic Stadium in Stratford, London, which hosted the 2012 Summer Olympics, and has a capacity of 60,000.