Athletics at the 2004 Athina Summer Games:

Russian Nataliya Sadova was in her third Olympics, having won a silver medal in 1996 and placed fourth in 2000. In both 1998 and 2002 she had placed second at the European Championships. The home crowd favorite was Greek Anastasia Kelesidou, silver medalist from 2000 in Sydney and runner-up at the 1999 and 2003 World Championships. Sadova opened with 64.78 in the first round to take the lead, only to be surpassed in round two by Czech Věra Cechlová. Kelesidou then moved ahead with 66.68 (218-9¼) in the third round. With her penultimate attempt, Sadova recorded 67.02 (219-10¾) to cement the gold medal, Kelesidou’s third round mark holding up for another silver medal.

Belarussian Irina Yatchenko initially won the bronze, as she had in 2000. But in 2012, the IOC re-tested drug samples from the 2004 Olympics and Yatchenko was disqualified for the presence of a methandienone metabolite. In 2006, Sadova was banned from competition for two years, also after testing positive for methandienone, an anabolic steroid.