Koji Murofushi
This was the 25th appearance of the event, which has been held at every Summer Olympics except 1896. Nine of the 12 finalists from the 2004 Games returned: gold medalist (and 2000 finalist) Koji Murofushi of Japan, bronze medalist Eşref Apak of Turkey, fourth-place finisher Vadim Devyatovskiy of Belarus, fifth-place finisher Krisztián Pars of Hungary, sixth-place finisher Primož Kozmus of Slovenia, seventh-place finisher Libor Charfreitag of Slovakia, tenth-place finisher Nicola Vizzoni of Italy, eleventh-place finisher Markus Esser of Germany, and Ivan Tsikhan of Belarus, who at the time was the 2004 silver medalist but who would later be stripped of that medal. 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. Szymon Ziółkowski of Poland, the 2000 Olympic and 2001 World champion (and 2005 World Champion after Tsikhan's win was vacated), returned after not making the final in 2004.