Rapid fire pistol at the Olympics

ISSF 25 meter rapid fire pistol at the Olympic Games
2016 Olympic shooting range
Overview
Sport	Shooting
Gender	Men
Years held	Men: 1896, 1900, 1912–1924, 1932–2024
Reigning champion
Men	Li Yuehong  (CHN)

The rapid fire pistol is the only shooting event on the current Olympic programme that dates back to 1896, since the removal of the men's free pistol. The current rapid fire pistol event is the ISSF 25 meter rapid fire pistol. The format and rules for the rapid fire pistol event changed widely in the early Olympics. ^[1] The event format has been largely standardized since 1924, though there have been significant rule changes since.

There has never been a women's version of the rapid fire pistol event; the current programme pairs the men's rapid fire pistol with the women's free pistol for gender equality. The event was nominally open to women from 1968 to 1980, although very few women participated these years. ^[2]

A team event was held twice, in 1912 and 1920.

Variants

The early Games had a few variants of the event:

• 1896: The event featured "muzzle-loading" pistols, which were required to be of .45 caliber. The distance was 25 metres, the current standard. As with other 1896 events, a multiplicative scoring system was used. Timing is unknown. ^{[3] [4]}
• 1900: This event was limited to professionals (a significant departure from the general amateurism principles of the time). Only six shots were fired per shooter. The pistols used are sometimes described as "military" pistols. Timing is unknown. Distance was 20 metres.
• 1912: This was a "dueling pistols" event. The timing in this event involved single shots rather than true rapid fire, but the target would appear for only 3 seconds for each shot. A full silhouette target was used. Distance was 30 metres. Hits, rather than score, was used as the first criterion for ranking shooters; only those tied on hits were sorted by score. ^{[5] [6] [7]}
• 1920: Like 1900, this is sometimes identified as a "military" pistols event. The distance was 30 metres. Shooters fired 30 shots each, with targets that had scoring circles up to 10 points apiece. Shooters had the option of using their team event score or shooting again for the individual match.
• 1924–1936: These three Games used variations on a hit-or-miss theme. Shots were fired in series of 6 shots, each at 6 targets. The score for the series was how many targets were hit; there were no scoring rings. The initial round used 3 series (maximum score 18), while successive rounds of 1 series each were used to narrow the field from those who scored perfectly. In 1924, the first round had the targets available for 10 seconds, with all later rounds being 8 seconds; for the other two Games, the first round was 8 seconds and the later rounds got faster each round, down to 2 seconds in the fifth round.

Medals

Men

Games	Gold	Silver	Bronze
1896 Athens details	Ioannis Frangoudis   Greece	Georgios Orphanidis   Greece	Holger Nielsen   Denmark
1900 Paris details	Maurice Larrouy   France	Léon Moreaux   France	Eugène Balme   France
1904 St. Louis	Not held
1908 London	Not held
1912 Stockholm details	Alfred Lane   United States	Paul Palén   Sweden	Johan Hübner von Holst   Sweden
1920 Antwerp details	Guilherme Paraense   Brazil	Raymond Bracken   United States	Fritz Zulauf   Switzerland
1924 Paris details	Henry Bailey   United States	Vilhelm Carlberg   Sweden	Lennart Hannelius   Finland
1928 Amsterdam	Not held
1932 Los Angeles details	Renzo Morigi   Italy	Heinrich Hax   Germany	Domenico Matteucci   Italy
1936 Berlin details	Cornelius van Oyen   Germany	Heinrich Hax   Germany	Torsten Ullman   Sweden
1948 London details	Károly Takács   Hungary	Carlos Enrique Díaz Sáenz Valiente   Argentina	Sven Lundquist   Sweden
1952 Helsinki details	Károly Takács   Hungary	Szilárd Kun   Hungary	Gheorghe Lichiardopol   Romania
1956 Melbourne details	Ștefan Petrescu   Romania	Yevgeny Cherkasov   Soviet Union	Gheorghe Lichiardopol   Romania
1960 Rome details	Bill McMillan   United States	Pentti Linnosvuo   Finland	Aleksandr Zabelin   Soviet Union
1964 Tokyo details	Pentti Linnosvuo   Finland	Ion Tripșa   Romania	Lubomír Nácovský   Czechoslovakia
1968 Mexico City details (mixed)	Józef Zapędzki   Poland	Marcel Roșca   Romania	Renart Suleymanov   Soviet Union
1972 Munich details (mixed)	Józef Zapędzki   Poland	Ladislav Falta   Czechoslovakia	Viktor Torshin   Soviet Union
1976 Montreal details (mixed)	Norbert Klaar   East Germany	Jürgen Wiefel   East Germany	Roberto Ferraris   Italy
1980 Moscow details (mixed)	Corneliu Ion   Romania	Jürgen Wiefel   East Germany	Gerhard Petritsch   Austria
1984 Los Angeles details	Takeo Kamachi   Japan	Corneliu Ion   Romania	Rauno Bies   Finland
1988 Seoul details	Afanasijs Kuzmins   Soviet Union	Ralf Schumann   East Germany	Zoltán Kovács   Hungary
1992 Barcelona details	Ralf Schumann   Germany	Afanasijs Kuzmins   Latvia	Vladimir Vokhmyanin   Unified Team
1996 Atlanta details	Ralf Schumann   Germany	Emil Milev   Bulgaria	Vladimir Vokhmyanin   Kazakhstan
2000 Sydney details	Sergei Alifirenko   Russia	Michel Ansermet   Switzerland	Iulian Raicea   Romania
2004 Athens details	Ralf Schumann   Germany	Sergei Polyakov   Russia	Sergei Alifirenko   Russia
2008 Beijing details	Oleksandr Petriv   Ukraine	Ralf Schumann   Germany	Christian Reitz   Germany
2012 London details	Leuris Pupo   Cuba	Vijay Kumar   India	Ding Feng   China
2016 Rio de Janeiro details	Christian Reitz   Germany	Jean Quiquampoix   France	Li Yuehong   China
2020 Tokyo details	Jean Quiquampoix   France	Leuris Pupo   Cuba	Li Yuehong   China
2024 Paris details	Li Yuehong   China	Cho Yeong-jae   South Korea	Wang Xinjie   China

Multiple medalists

Rank	Gymnast	Nation	Olympics	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	Ralf Schumann	East Germany  (GDR)   Germany  (GER)	1988–1996, 2004–2008	3	2	0	5
2	Károly Takács	Hungary  (HUN)	1948–1952	2	0	0	2
	Józef Zapędzki	Poland  (POL)	1968–1972	2	0	0	2
4	Pentti Linnosvuo	Finland  (FIN)	1960–1964	1	1	0	2
	Corneliu Ion	Romania  (ROU)	1980–1984	1	1	0	2
	Afanasijs Kuzmins	Soviet Union  (URS)   Latvia  (LAT)	1988–1992	1	1	0	2
7	Sergei Alifirenko	Russia  (RUS)	2000–2004	1	0	1	2
	Christian Reitz	Germany  (GER)	2008, 2016	1	0	1	2
9	Heinrich Hax	Germany  (GER)	1932–1936	0	2	0	2
	Jürgen Wiefel	East Germany  (GDR)	1976–1980	0	2	0	2
11	Gheorghe Lichiardopol	Romania  (ROU)	1952–1956	0	0	2	2
	Vladimir Vokhmyanin	Unified Team  (EUN)   Kazakhstan  (KAZ)	1992–1996	0	0	2	2

Medalists by nation

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	Germany  (GER)	5	3	1	9
2	United States  (USA)	3	1	0	4
3	Romania  (ROU)	2	3	3	8
4	France  (FRA)	2	2	1	5
5	Hungary  (HUN)	2	1	1	4
6	Poland  (POL)	2	0	0	2
7	East Germany  (GDR)	1	3	0	4
8	Soviet Union  (URS)	1	1	3	5
9	Finland  (FIN)	1	1	2	4
10	Russia  (RUS)	1	1	1	3
11	Cuba  (CUB)	1	1	0	2
	Greece  (GRE)	1	1	0	2
13	Italy  (ITA)	1	0	2	3
14	Brazil  (BRA)	1	0	0	1
	Japan  (JPN)	1	0	0	1
	Ukraine  (UKR)	1	0	0	1
17	Sweden  (SWE)	0	2	3	5
18	Czechoslovakia  (TCH)	0	1	1	2
	Switzerland  (SUI)	0	1	1	2
20	Argentina  (ARG)	0	1	0	1
	Bulgaria  (BUL)	0	1	0	1
	India  (IND)	0	1	0	1
	Latvia  (LAT)	0	1	0	1
24	China  (CHN)	0	0	3	3
25	Austria  (AUT)	0	0	1	1
	Denmark  (DEN)	0	0	1	1
	Kazakhstan  (KAZ)	0	0	1	1
	Unified Team at the Olympics  (EUN)	0	0	1	1
Totals (28 entries)		26	26	26	78

Team rapid fire pistol

Men

Games	Gold	Silver	Bronze
1912 Stockholm details	Eric Carlberg, Vilhelm Carlberg, Johan Hübner von Holst, Paul Palén   Sweden	Amos Kash, Nikolai Melnitsky, Grigori Panteleimonov, Pavel Voyloshnikov   Russia	Hugh Durant, Albert Kempster, Horatio Poulter, Charles Stewart   Great Britain
1920 Antwerp details	Louis Harant, Alfred Lane, Karl Frederick, James H. Snook, Michael Kelly   United States	Alexandros Vrasivanopoulos, Georgios Moraitinis, Iason Sappas, Alexandros Theofilakis, Ioannis Theofilakis   Greece	Fritz Zulauf, Joseph Jehle, Gustave Amoudruz, Hans Egli, Domenico Giambonini   Switzerland

References

1. Not all sources include the first four appearances of the event (1896, 1900, 1912, and 1920) as rapid fire pistol events. 1980 Official Report, vol. 3, p. 531, lists the prior champions in the rapid fire pistol, including three of those events and indicating they are part of the rapid fire pistol series; the ISSF lists all four at its website.
2. "Olympedia – Shooting".
3. "Muzzle-Loading Pistol, 25 metres, Men". Olympedia. Retrieved 11 December 2020.
4. Official Report, part 2, p. 94.
5. "Muzzle-Loading Pistol, 25 metres, Men". Olympedia. Retrieved 11 December 2020.
6. 1912 Official Report, p. 1062.
7. 1912 Official Report, p. 701.