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 human-portable guns 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.
Kimberly Susan Rhode is an American double trap and skeet shooter. A California native, she is a six-time Olympic medal winner, including three gold medals, and six-time national champion in double trap. She is the most successful female shooter at the Olympics as the only triple Olympic Champion and the only woman to have won two Olympic gold medals for Double Trap. She won a gold medal in skeet shooting at the 2012 Summer Olympics, equaling the world record of 99 out of 100 clays. Most recently, she won the bronze medal at the Rio 2016 Olympics, making her the first Olympian to win a medal on five different continents, the first Summer Olympian to win an individual medal at six consecutive summer games, and the first woman to medal in six consecutive Olympics.
Trap shooting is one of the three major disciplines of competitive clay pigeon shooting. The other disciplines are skeet shooting and sporting clays. They are distinguished roughly as follows, with variations within each group:
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 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 shooting competitions at the 1996 Summer Olympics took place at the Wolf Creek Shooting Complex near Atlanta, United States. Competitions were held in men's events and women's events. For men's and women's double trap, it was the first Olympic competition, a women's shotgun event also had been added.
Olympic Skeet is a variant of skeet shooting, and the specific variant used in the Olympic Games. Two throwing machines at different heights launch a series of 25 targets in a specific order, some as singles and some as doubles, with the shooter having a fixed position between them. Both men's and women's competitions consist of five such series. The top six competitors shoot an additional series as a final round, on targets filled with special powder to show hits more clearly to the audience.
Officially referred to only as trap, and also known in the United States as international trap, bunker trap, trench or international clay pigeon, the single-target Olympic trap shooting event has a history of more than a hundred years. It is considered more difficult than most other trap versions in that the distance to the targets and the speed with which they are thrown are both greater.
Russell Andrew Mark, (born 25 February 1964 in Hoppers Crossing, Victoria is an Olympic Champion Shooter. He won the Olympic gold medal in double trap at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. He also won an Olympic silver medal at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. He has competed at six Olympic Games: 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2008, 2012. The only Australian Summer Olympian to compete in more is Andrew Hoy, who competed in seven Olympiads.
The 2009 ISSF World Cup is the twenty-fourth annual edition of the ISSF World Cup in the Olympic shooting events, governed by the International Shooting Sport Federation. Four qualification competitions are held in each event, spanning from April to June, and the best shooters will qualify for the ISSF World Cup Final, which will take place in China in October. The shotgun finals were originally scheduled for Istanbul, but were later moved to the Beijing Shooting Range Clay Target Field, while the rifle and pistol events will be held at a range in Wuxi. Apart from those who qualify through the 2009 World Cup competitions, the defending champions and the reigning Olympic champions will also be invited to the final. The host country may also participate with at least two shooters regardless of qualification.
William Chetcuti is a Maltese sport shooter who specializes in the double trap. He won the 2011 World Cup event in Beijing and the 2004 European Junior Championship where he set what is still a world record. He was the first Maltese shooter to win a World Cup medal.
Charlotte Kerwood is a British sports shooter.
Shooting competitions at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo are scheduled to take place from 25 July to 2 August at the Asaka Shooting Range. Unlike in 2016, the number of shooters competing across fifteen different events at these Games has 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.
Stephen Thomas "Steve" Haberman is an Australian sport shooter. He captured the men's double trap title at the 1995 ISSF World Shotgun Championships in Nicosia, and had the opportunity to represent Australia in two editions of the Olympic Games. Haberman currently trains for Echuca Ghil Target Club in his native Geelong, under Azerbaijani-born coach and three-time Olympic skeet shooter Valeri Timokhin.
Timothy Kneale is a Manx sport shooter who specializes in the double trap. He is the current world record holder for the event, having scored 148 out of 150 at the 2014 ISSF World Cup meet in Munich, Germany. Apart from his world-record feat, Kneale has won two medals in a major international competition, a silver at the 2015 World Shotgun Championships and a bronze as a representative of the Isle of Man team at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi, India.
The 2016 Asian Olympic Shooting Qualifying Tournament was held in New Delhi, India between January 27 and February 3. This tournament was the Asian qualifying tournament for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio, after the 2015 Asian Shooting Championships was stripped of its status after the IOC suspended Kuwait NOC.
Malta competed at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 5 to 21 August 2016. This was the nation's sixteenth appearance at the Summer Olympics, since its debut in 1928, although it failed to register any athletes in five other editions.
The 2018 ISSF World Cup is the annual edition of the ISSF World Cup in the Olympic shooting events, governed by the International Shooting Sport Federation.
