Shooting sports is a collective group of competitive and recreational sporting activities involving proficiency tests of accuracy, precision and speed in shooting — the art of using various types of ranged weapons, mainly referring to man-portable guns and bows/crossbows.
The modern pentathlon is an Olympic sport that comprises five different events; fencing, freestyle swimming (200 m), equestrian show jumping, and a final combined event of pistol shooting and cross country running (3200 m). This last event is now referred to as the laser-run, since it alternates four legs of laser pistol shooting followed by an 800 m run. The event is inspired by the traditional pentathlon held during the ancient Olympics; as the original events were patterned on the skills needed by an ideal Greek soldier of the era, the modern pentathlon is similarly patterned on events representing the skills needed by cavalry behind enemy lines.
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.
The men's 800 metres at the 2004 Summer Olympics as part of the athletics program were held at the Athens Olympic Stadium from August 25 to 28.
The 50 meter pistol, formerly and unofficially still often called free pistol, is one of the ISSF shooting events. It provides the purest precision shooting among the pistol events, and is one of the oldest shooting disciplines, dating back to the 19th century and only having seen marginal rule changes since 1936. Most of the changes concern distance, caliber, type of pistol, time allowed, and most recently, format of the finals. The target of this event has not changed since 1900, and the 50m distance has remained the standard since 1912. Competitors have been using the small-bore, rim-fire cartridge since 1908. The sport traced back to the beginning of indoor Flobert pistol parlor shooting in Europe during the 1870s, which in turn traced back to 18th century pistol dueling.
10 meter air rifle is an International Shooting Sports Federation (ISSF) shooting event, shot over a distance of 10 metres from a standing position with a 4.5 mm (0.177 in) calibre air rifle with a maximum weight of 5.5 kg (12.13 lb). The use of specialized clothing is allowed to improve the stability of the shooting position and prevent chronic back injury which can be caused by the asymmetric offset load on the spine when the rifle is held in position. It is one of the ISSF-governed shooting events included in the Olympic games.
The 10 meter air pistol is an Olympic shooting event governed by the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF). It is similar to 10 meter air rifle in that it is shot with 4.5 mm caliber air guns at a distance of 10 metres (11 yards), and that the match consists of a qualification round of 60 competition shots within 75 minutes. If an Electronic Scoring System (EST) is not available, 15 minutes are added to the time limit. Competitors are allowed to shoot an unlimited amount of shots during the 15 minutes preparation and sighting time. Along with the 50 meter pistol, it is considered a precision shooting event. Thus, numerous shooters compete in both events.
The men's 10 metre running target competition at the 2004 Summer Olympics was held on 18 and 19 August at the Markópoulo Olympic Shooting Centre near Athens, Greece. Along with the women's double trap, this was the last Olympic competition in the event, before being removed from the program shortly after the Games.
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 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 Bailey–Johnson 150-metre race was a track and field event that occurred in Toronto, Ontario on Sunday, 1 June 1997. In an effort to settle the dispute regarding who was the world's fastest man, a race not sanctioned by IAAF was held at SkyDome between 1996 Olympic 100 metre champion Donovan Bailey from Canada, and 1996 Olympic 200 metre and 400 metre champion Michael Johnson, from the United States.
100 meter running deer is a discontinued ISSF shooting event, that was part of the Olympic program from 1908 to 1924, in 1952 and 1956, and of the ISSF World Shooting Championships program from 1929 to 1962, when it was replaced by 50 meter running target. Being the original running target event, it was shot with centerfire rifles from a distance of 100 meters, with the target moving sideways across a 20 meter wide opening. There were two versions: single shot and double shot. Occasionally combined competitions, with half the course fired single-shot and half double-shot, were held instead of or in addition to the others. The Nordic Shooting Region continued to hold championships in the discipline until 2004.
50 metre rifle prone is an International Shooting Sport Federation event consisting of 60 shots from the prone position with a .22 Long Rifle (5.6 mm) caliber rifle. The time limit is 75 minutes for the entire match, including sighting shots, or 90 minutes if there is a need to compensate for slow scoring systems. In the 2013 ISSF rules the 60-shot prone match consists of 15-minute preparation and sighting time, followed by the match - 60 shots in 50 minutes for electronic scoring, and 60 shots in 60 minutes for paper targets.
10 metre running target mixed is one of the ISSF shooting events, in which one shoots an airgun at a target that moves sideways. The target is pulled across a two-meter aisle at a range of 10 metres from the firing point. The target is pulled either slow or fast, and it is visible for 5 or 2.5 seconds, respectively. The difference from 10 metre running target is that the slow and the fast runs are fired in a randomized order, that is not known beforehand to the shooter.
The men's skeet shooting competition at the 2000 Summer Olympics was the last shooting event of the Sydney Games, held on 22 and 23 September. Yang Ling successfully defended his title, a tenth of a point ahead of Oleg Moldovan.
Men's 50 metre running target made its final Olympic appearance at the 1988 Summer Olympics. It was also the only time the 30 slow runs and 30 fast runs were followed by a ten-shot final for the top four contestants. Gennadi Avramenko and Tor Heiestad established a new Olympic record of 591 points, and Heiestad won the final, where Avramenko was also surpassed by Huang Shiping.
The Union Internationale de Pentathlon Moderne, commonly known by the acronym UIPM, has been the international governing body of modern pentathlon since its foundation in London in 1948. Its headquarters are in Monte-Carlo, Monaco and it has 115 national federation members. Modern pentathlon was introduced at the 5th Olympiad in Stockholm (SWE) in 1912, comprising the contemporary sports of pistol shooting, fencing, swimming, horse riding and running, which embraced the spirit of its ancient counterpart.
The men's 4 × 400 metres relay competition at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil was held at the Estádio Olímpico João Havelange on 19–20 August.
Adam Christophe Saathoff is an American sport shooter. He has competed for Team USA in running target shooting at three Olympics, and has been close to an Olympic final in 2004. Outside his Olympic career, Saathoff has won a total of five medals in a major international competition, spanning the ISSF World Cup series and the World Championships. A resident athlete of the United States Olympic Training Center, Saathoff trains under Belarussian-born coach Sergey Luzov for the America's national running target team.
The men's 5000 metres at the 2019 World Athletics Championships was held at the Khalifa International Stadium in Doha from 27 to 30 September 2019.
