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.
Shooting sports have been included at every Summer Olympic Games since the birth of the modern Olympic movement at the 1896 Summer Olympics except at the 1904 and 1928 games.
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.
The Swiss Shooting Sport Federation, German: Schweizer Schiesssportverband (SSSV), is an association for sport shooting in Switzerland. It was founded in its current form in 2001, but has roots as far back as in 1824. It is associated with the International Shooting Sport Federation and the European Shooting Confederation.
Paralympic shooting, also known as shooting Para sport, is an adaptation of shooting sports for competitors with disabilities. Shooting is a test of accuracy and control, in which competitors use pistols or rifles to fire a series of shots at a stationary target. Each shot is worth a maximum score of 10.9 points. Athletes use .22 caliber rifles, pistols and .177 caliber air guns. Paralympic shooting first appeared in the Summer Paralympics at the 1976 Toronto Games.
50 meter rifle three positions is an International Shooting Sport Federation event, a miniature version of 300 meter rifle three positions. It consists of the kneeling, prone, and standing positions, fired in that order, traditionally with 3×40 shots for men and 3×20 shots for women. In January 2018, the number of shots was equalised between genders with the Women's 3x20 being abolished in favour of a 3x40 match identical to the men's event. The caliber is .22 Long Rifle (5.6 mm).
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.
300 m rifle prone is an ISSF shooting event. It was added to the World Championship program in 1982, and was based on the English Match but shot with the same full-power rifle as in 300 metre rifle three positions. The course of fire, like in the small-bore 50 metre rifle prone, is 60 shots for both men and women.
Sally Johnston is a New Zealand competitive sport shooter. She started shooting in 1983 with her first international competition in 1995 at the Oceania Championships in Auckland. Johnston placed eighth in the 50m rifle three positions and ninth in the 10m air rifle. In 1997, she beat her personal bests in all three events at the Oceania Championships in Adelaide where she placed fourth in the 50m rifle prone, tenth in the 10m air rifle and eleventh in 50m rifle three positions event.
Guy Starik is an Israeli sport shooter who has competed in four Olympics. He has won gold medals in shooting at both the European Championships and at four World Cups, and shares the world record in the 50 meter rifle prone competition.
Valérian Sauveplane is a French sport shooter.
Petr Litvinchuk is a sport shooter from Belarus. He was born in Brest, Belarus, and lives in Minsk, Belarus.
Torben Grimmel is a Danish sport shooter. Specialising in the ISSF 50m prone rifle event, Grimmel won the silver medal at the 2000 Summer Olympics. He was the European Junior Champion in 1995. As of 2023 he has won fourteen ISSF World Cup medals, and two ISSF World Cup finals.
Bullseye shooting is a category of shooting sport disciplines where the objective is to score points with carefully placed precision fire by hitting a target as close to its center as possible. The name refers to the target center's nickname, the "bull's eye". In Scandinavia, this type of shooting competition is referred to as Range-Shooting, as it usually takes place at dedicated shooting range.
Silvia Guignard Schnyder is a Swiss sport shooter.
The European 300 m Rifle Championships are special shooting sport championships of 300 metre rifle discipline, organized discontinuously as a stand alone championships by the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) since 1959.
The 1st ISSF Rifle/Pistol World Shooting Championships were held in New Administrative Capital, Egypt from 12 to 27 October 2022 in 78 events. This also served as qualification event for 2024 Summer Olympics.
Jenny Vatne is a Norwegian sports shooter. As of October 2023, she has won four team medals at ISSF World Championships, as well as two medals at European Shooting Championships.
Bettina Bucher is a Swiss sports shooter who specialises in the 300-metre disciplines. She became World Champion at the 2010 ISSF World Shooting Championships in the 300m Prone Rifle event, matching Charlotte Jakobsen's World Record score.
Charlotte Jakobsen (DEN)
Bettina Bucher (SWI)
Seonaid McIntosh (GBR)