Holger Louis Nielsen was a Danish fencer, sport shooter, and athlete. He competed at the 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens. He is probably best known for drawing up the first set of rules for the game of handball.
The men's ISSF 25 meter rapid fire pistol competition at the 2004 Summer Olympics was held on 21 August at the Markopoulo Olympic Shooting Centre near Athens, Greece. This was the last Olympic competition before the major rule changes that took place on 1 January 2005, and which lowered the results of the event. There were 17 competitors from 14 nations.
The men's 20 metre rapid fire pistol was one of the competitions in the 1900 Summer Olympics shooting events in Paris. It was held from August 1 to August 4, 1900. Six athletes from 2 nations competed. This event was contested for prize money by professionals. It is no longer included in the International Olympic Committee website's database of Olympic medal events. Five of the six shooters were from France; the host nation swept the medals as Maurice Larrouy won with Léon Moreaux second and Eugène Balme third.
The men's 300 metre free rifle was one of the five sport shooting events on the Shooting at the 1896 Summer Olympics programme. The second rifle event and last of the shooting events, the free rifle was begun on 11 April. Each marksman fired 40 shots, in four strings of ten. 25 men entered the event, though only 20 actually competed. They represented three nations. Frangoudis led after the first day, but when the event was continued on 12 April, Orphanidis took the lead and held on to win first place. He hit the target 37 times.
The men's 25 metre military pistol was one of the five sport shooting events on the 1896 Summer Olympics shooting programme. 16 competitors from four nations entered the military pistol match, held on 10 April. Each shot thirty rounds in five strings of six at a target 25 metres away. The winner, John Paine of the United States, hit the target 25 times. His brother, Sumner Paine, hit the target 23 times. They used American-made military Colt revolvers.
The men's 30 metre individual competition with free revolver was one of the five sport shooting events on the 1896 Summer Olympics shooting program. Six competitors entered the pistol event on 11 April. Having won the 25 metre military pistol event, John Paine then withdrew from the 30 metre free pistol event, citing his desire to not embarrass his Greek hosts. He also said he had an agreement with his brother that whoever won the first event between them would drop out the next event. The competitors each shot five strings of six shots. Sumner Paine won the event.
The men's ISSF 25 meter rapid fire pistol was a shooting sports event held as part of the Shooting at the 1936 Summer Olympics programme. It was the seventh appearance of the event. The competition was held on 6 August 1936 at the shooting ranges at Wannsee. 53 shooters from 22 nations competed. Nations were limited to three shooters each, as they had been since the 1932 Games. The top two places were taken by the hosts, as Germans Cornelius van Oyen and Heinrich Hax won gold and silver, respectively. Hax was the first man to earn multiple medals in the event, repeating his silver performance from 1932. Torsten Ullman of Sweden earned bronze.
The men's ISSF 25 meter rapid fire pistol was a shooting sports event held as part of the Shooting at the 1932 Summer Olympics programme. It was the sixth appearance of the event. The competition was held on August 12, 1932. 18 shooters from 7 nations competed. Nations were limited to three shooters each. The event was won by Renzo Morigi of Italy, with Heinrich Hax of Germany taking silver and another Italian, Domenico Matteucci, earning bronze. They were the first medals in the event for both nations.
The men's ISSF 25 meter rapid fire pistol was a shooting sports event held as part of the Shooting at the 1924 Summer Olympics programme. It was the fifth appearance of the event. The competition was held on 28 June 1924 at the shooting ranges at Versailles. 55 shooters from 17 nations competed. Nations were limited to four shooters each. Henry Bailey won the United States' second consecutive championship in the event. Sweden also earned the same medal as in 1912, with Vilhelm Carlberg's silver. Lennart Hannelius took bronze in Finland's debut in the event.
The men's 30 metre rapid fire pistol, labeled the "revolver" in the Official Report and often described as a "military pistol" event was a shooting sports event held as part of the Shooting at the 1920 Summer Olympics programme. The International Shooting Sport Federation identified this event as the fourth appearance of an individual 25 metre rapid fire pistol event; it was the second time the distance was 30 metres. In 1896 the distance was 25 metres; in 1900, 20 metres. The competition was held on 3 August 1920. 11 shooters from 3 nations competed. The event was won by Guilherme Paraense in Brazil's debut in the event; it was Brazil's first Olympic gold in any event. American Raymond Bracken took silver, while Swiss shooter Fritz Zulauf earned his nation's first medal in the event.
The men's ISSF 25 meter rapid fire pistol event at the 2008 Olympic Games took place on August 15 and 16 at the Beijing Shooting Range Hall. There were 19 competitors from 14 nations. The event was won by Oleksandr Petriv of Ukraine, the nation's first medal in the event. Germany took silver and bronze. It was Schumann's fifth and final Olympic medal in the event; with three golds and two silvers, he was individually more successful than any nation other than Germany. After rule changes, new Olympic records were established by Keith Sanderson and Petriv (final).
The men's ISSF 25 meter rapid fire pistol competition at the 2000 Summer Olympics was held on 20 and 21 September. There were 20 competitors from 17 nations. Nations had been limited to two shooters each since the 1952 Games. The event was won by Sergei Alifirenko of Russia, the nation's first medal independent of the Soviet Union. Michel Ansermet's silver was Switzerland's first medal in the event since 1920; Iulian Raicea's bronze was Romania's first since 1984.
The men's ISSF 25 meter rapid fire pistol was one of the fifteen shooting events at the 1996 Summer Olympics. Ralf Schumann defended his title from Barcelona, setting two new Olympic records. Schumann was the third man to successfully defend an Olympic title in the rapid fire pistol, and the first to win three or more medals in the event; he would finish with three golds and five total medals. Emil Milev of Bulgaria (silver) and Vladimir Vokhmyanin of Kazakhstan (bronze) each won their nation's first medal in the event, though Vokhmyanin was a repeat bronze medalist, making him the 10th man to win multiple medals in the event. There were 23 competitors from 19 nations. Nations had been limited to two shooters each since the 1952 Games.
The men's ISSF 25 meter rapid fire pistol was one of the thirteen shooting events at the 1992 Summer Olympics. It was the first Olympic rapid fire competition on the new, circular targets, and also the only one in history to feature both a semifinal, consisting of four four-second series for the top eight shooters, and a final, consisting of two additional four-second series for the top four. Afanasijs Kuzmins and Ralf Schumann, who had battled for the gold medal four years earlier, once again clinched the top two spots, although in reversed order. The two were the eighth and ninth men to win multiple medals in the event. Schumann's win was the first victory for unified Germany since 1936, though East Germany had won medals since. Kuzmins earned Latvia's first independent medal. Vladimir Vokhmyanin of the Unified Team finished on the same score as Kuzmins, but a lower final score demoted him to bronze. There were 30 competitors from 23 nations. Nations had been limited to two shooters each since the 1952 Games.
The ISSF 25 meter rapid fire pistol was a competition at the 1972 Summer Olympics. Józef Zapędzki of Poland set an Olympic record of 595 to defend his gold medal. He was the first shooter to defend the gold medal, in this event, since Károly Takács of Hungary defended his gold at the 1948 and 1952 games. Ladislav Falta of Czechoslovakia took silver. Viktor Torshin's bronze put the Soviet Union on the rapid fire pistol podium for the fourth time in five Games. There were 62 competitors from 39 nations. The nations had been limited to two shooters each since the 1952 Games.
The men's ISSF 25 meter rapid fire pistol event at the 2012 Olympic Games was held on 2 and 3 August 2012 at the Royal Artillery Barracks. There were 18 competitors from 13 nations. The event was won by Leuris Pupo of Cuba. Silver went to Vijay Kumar of India, while Ding Feng of China took bronze. It was the first medal in the event for all three nations. Ralf Schumann missed the final for the first time; he had reached the final in the previous six Games.
The men's ISSF 25 meter rapid fire pistol was a shooting sports event held as part of the Shooting at the 1948 Summer Olympics programme. It was the eighth appearance of the event. The competition was held on 4 August 1948 at the shooting ranges at London. 59 shooters from 22 nations competed. Nations had been limited to three shooters each since the 1932 Games. The event was won by Károly Takács of Hungary, the nation's first medal in the event. Argentine Carlos Enrique Díaz Sáenz Valiente took silver, also his nation's first rapid fire pistol medal. Unlike Hungary and Argentina, Sweden was no stranger to the podium in this event; Sven Lundquist's bronze made it the fourth consecutive time that Sweden competed it earned a medal.
The men's ISSF 25 meter rapid fire pistol was a shooting sports event held as part of the Shooting at the 1952 Summer Olympics programme. It was the ninth appearance of the event. The competition was held on 27 and 28 July 1952 at the shooting ranges in Helsinki with 53 shooters from 28 nations competing. The maximum number of shooters per nation was reduced to 2, from 3 in previous Games. The event was won by Károly Takács of Hungary, the first man to successfully defend an Olympic rapid fire title. Hungary also took the second place, with Szilárd Kun earning silver. Gheorghe Lichiardopol of Romania won bronze in his nation's debut in the event.
The men's ISSF 25 meter rapid fire pistol was a shooting sports event held as part of the Shooting at the 1964 Summer Olympics programme. It was the 12th appearance of the event. The competition was held on 19 October 1964 at the Camp Asaka shooting ranges in Tokyo. 53 shooters from 34 nations competed. Nations had been limited to two shooters each since the 1952 Games. The event was won by Pentti Linnosvuo of Finland, the nation's first victory in the event. Linnosvuo was the fourth man to win multiple medals in the event, adding to his 1960 silver; it was his fourth straight Games finishing in the top 5 of the event. Ion Tripșa of Romania took silver, putting that nation back on the podium after a one-Games absence. Czechoslovakia's first rapid fire pistol medal came in the form of Lubomír Nácovský's bronze.
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. The event format has been largely standardized since 1924, though there have been significant rule changes since.
