Shooting
Shooting sports are divided into pistol and rifle shooting and trap shooting. Pistol and rifle shooting are subdivided into shooting with pistols and rifles. In trap shooting, athletes shoot from 12-gauge smoothbore shotguns with shot cartridges.
Athletes shoot with small-caliber rifled firearms (diameter 5.6 mm) and air guns (diameter 4.5 mm). The Olympic program includes 10 events.
- Rifle: "small-bore rifle, three positions, 50m, men", "small-bore rifle, three positions, 50m, women", "air rifle, 10m, men", "air rifle, 10m, women", "air rifle, 10m, mixed teams".
- Pistol: "rapid-fire pistol, 25m, men", "small-bore standard pistol, 25m, women", "air pistol, 10m, men", "air pistol, 10m, women", "air pistol, 10m, mixed teams".
Major international and all-Russian competitions are held using electronic targets.
In trap shooting, athletes shoot with 12-gauge smoothbore shotguns using shot cartridges.
The Olympic program includes 5 events: 'trap, men,' 'trap, women,' 'trap, mixed teams,' 'skeet, men,' 'skeet, women.'
Shooting is done at clay targets that are launched from machines along a specific trajectory, which depends on the exercise.
Targets are made from a mixture of coal tar pitch (a component used in asphalt production) and cement. When shots hit the clay target, it breaks. To increase spectator interest and reduce the likelihood of judging errors, the final round is shot at special targets called 'flash targets,' which release a cloud of brightly colored powder into the air upon impact. The target diameter is 110 mm.
Interesting
Pierre de Coubertin was the French shooting champion long before he founded the Olympic Games. It was on his initiative that 4 pistol shooting events and 2 rifle shooting events were included in the program of the Games of the I Olympiad in 1896.
Olympic Games
Shooting was included in the Olympic Games program by Pierre de Coubertin from the first Olympics in Athens in 1896 and has been part of the program of all Olympic Games since then, except for the years 1904 and 1928.
The first competitions were held only among men, and since the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico, women were allowed to participate in shooting events on equal terms with men. The separation into men's and women's events began at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. Since 1996 in Atlanta, men's and women's events have been held separately.
In 2017, the International Olympic Committee approved the proposal of the International Shooting Sport Federation to include three mixed events in the Olympic program: '10m air rifle, men,' '10m air rifle, women,' and 'trap, mixed teams.' This equalized the number of events for men and women in shooting sports.
A total of 15 sets of medals are contested in rifle and shotgun shooting at the Olympic Games
Russia
The first Soviet champion in shooting became Anatoly Bogdanov in 1952 in Helsinki. He won the three-position rifle event, and in 1956 in Melbourne he repeated his success. Among women, the two-time Olympic champion was Marina Logvinenko, who won in small-bore and air pistol shooting at the 1992 Games in Barcelona. At the most recent Olympic Games, the champions were representatives of Russia: Yuri Fedkin (1992, Barcelona) and Artem Khadzhibekov (1996, Atlanta) in air rifle shooting, Boris Kokorev (1996, Atlanta) and Mikhail Nestruyev (2004, Athens) in small-bore pistol shooting, Sergey Alifirenko (2000, Sydney) in rapid fire pistol shooting, Lyubov Galkina (2004, Athens) in small-bore rifle shooting, and Olga Klochneva (1996, Atlanta) in air pistol shooting.
The first Soviet Olympic champion in trap shooting was Yevgeny Petrov in 1968. He won at the Mexico City Games in trap shooting, hitting 198 out of 200 targets. At the 1976 Olympic Games, he was the senior coach of the USSR team, and at the 1992 Games, he was the head trap shooting coach of the Unified Team. Olympic champions in trap shooting from our country included Dmitry Monakov (1988, Seoul) and Aleksey Alipov (2004, Athens), who won in the double trap event.
Our Olympians
