Shooting sports is a group of competitive and recreational sporting activities involving proficiency tests of accuracy, precision and speed in shooting — the art of using ranged weapons, mainly small arms and bows/crossbows.
The International Shooting Sport Federation recognizes several shooting events, some of which have Olympic status. They are divided into four disciplines: rifle, pistol, shotgun and running target.
Practical shooting, also known as dynamic shooting or action shooting, is a set of shooting sports where the competitors try to unite the three principles of precision, power, and speed, by using a firearm of a certain minimum power factor to score as many points as possible during the shortest amount of time. While scoring systems vary between organizations, each measures the time of which the course is completed, with penalties for inaccurate shooting. The courses are called "stages", and are shot individually by the shooters. Usually the shooter must move and shoot from several positions, fire under or over obstacles and in other unfamiliar positions. There are no standard exercises or set arrangement of the targets, and the courses are often designed so that the shooter must be inventive, and therefore the solutions of exercises sometimes varies between shooters.
The International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) is the governing body of the Olympic shooting events in rifle, pistol and shotgun disciplines, and of several non-Olympic shooting sport events. ISSF's activities include regulation of the sport, Olympic qualifications and organization of international competitions such as the ISSF World Cup Series, the ISSF World Cup Finals, the ISSF Separate World Championship in Shotgun events and the ISSF World Championship in all events.
The ISSF World Cup was introduced by the International Shooting Sport Federation in 1986 to provide a homogeneous system for qualification to the Olympic shooting competitions. It still is carried out in the Olympic shooting events, with four competitions per year in each event. For the best shooters there is since 1988 a World Cup Final.
The ISSF World Shooting Championships are governed by the International Shooting Sport Federation. World Shooting Championships began in 1897, after the successful 1896 Summer Olympics, and although the ISSF was not founded until 1907, these early competitions are still seen by the organization as the beginning of a continuous row of championships. By this logic, the 2006 competition in Zagreb was called the 49th ISSF World Shooting Championships. These championships, including all ISSF shooting events, are held every four years since 1954. For the shotgun events only, there is an additional World Championship competition in odd-numbered years. These extra competitions are not numbered. In running target, there will be World Championships in Olympic years.
Giovanni Pellielo is an Italian sport shooter. He won the silver medal in Men's trap at the 2008 Summer Olympics, and also earned a bronze medal in the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney and a silver medal in the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens and 2016 Rio Olympics.
300 m rifle three positions is an ISSF shooting event, involving shooting 40 shots each from the prone, the standing and the kneeling positions. Men and women both shoot the same number of shots, though previously women only shot half the course - or 20 shots in each position.
The European Shooting Confederation (ESC) is an association of the International Shooting Sport Federation's member federations from Europe, including the Caucasus, Cyprus, Israel, and Turkey. After the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the ISSF banned Russian and Belarusian athletes and officials from its competitions. In addition, the ESC stripped Russia of its right to host the 2022 European Shooting Championships in the 25m, 50m, 300m, running target and shotgun.
The European Shooting Championships are the global sport shooting European championships as regards the disciplines of the sport shooting of the rifle and the pistol. Sometimes the competition also includes trap shooting, skeet and running target shooting events, usually organized in special championships.
Shooting competitions at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo were originally scheduled from 25 July to 3 August 2020, due to the postponement of the Summer Olympics to 2021, the rescheduled dates were on 24 July to 2 August 2021 at the Asaka Shooting Range. Unlike in 2016, the number of shooters competing across fifteen events at these Games had been reduced from 390 to 360, with an equal distribution between men and women. Furthermore, several significant changes were instituted in the Olympic shooting program, including the substitution of three male-only events, with the mixed team competitions.
The IPSC Rifle World Shoot is the highest level rifle match within the International Practical Shooting Confederation (IPSC) which consists of several days and at least 30 separate courses of fire. The Rifle World Shoots are held triennially on a rotational cycle with the other two main IPSC disciplines Handgun and Shotgun.
The 1959 European 300 m Rifle Championships was the 1st edition of the European 300 m Rifle Championships, organised by the International Shooting Sport Federation.
The 1977 European 300 m Rifle Championships was the 2nd edition of the 300 m rifle competition, European 300 m Rifle Championships, organised by the International Shooting Sport Federation as a stand alone championships after 18 years from the first edition held in 1959.
The 1999 European 300 m Rifle Championships was the 11th edition of the 300 m rifle competition, European 300 m Rifle Championships, organised by the International Shooting Sport Federation as a stand alone championships.
The 1997 European 300 m Rifle Championships was the 10th edition of the 300 m rifle competition, European 300 m Rifle Championships, organised by the International Shooting Sport Federation as a stand-alone championships.
The 1995 European 300 m Rifle Championships was the 9th edition of the 300 m rifle competition, European 300 m Rifle Championships, organised by the International Shooting Sport Federation as a stand-alone championships.
The 1993 European 300 m Rifle Championships was the 8th edition of the 300 m rifle competition, European 300 m Rifle Championships, organised by the International Shooting Sport Federation as a stand alone championships.
The 1991 European 300 m Rifle Championships was the 7th edition of the 300 m rifle competition, European 300 m Rifle Championships, organised by the International Shooting Sport Federation as a stand alone championships.
The 2021 European Shooting Championships were held from 22 May to 5 June 2021 in Osijek, Croatia. 1,473 athletes from 52 countries competed.
