Tatsuya Sakai is a Japanese sport shooter who won the 2004 Steel Challenge World Championship in Piru, California. [1] Since handguns cannot be legally obtained by civilians in Japan, he trained at home using an airsoft pistol. [2] A month before the championship he went to California to train with a real gun, [3] and placed first 0.59 seconds before KC Eusebio.
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 firearms, mainly referring to man-portable guns and bows/crossbows.
Ralf Schumann is a former German 25 m rapid fire pistol shooter. He is a three-time Olympic Champion and twice the World Champion. One of the most decorated shooters of the modern era, he is the first of two sport shooters to have won three Olympic gold medals in one individual event and became the first of three sport shooters to have won three Olympic individual gold medals. He won the gold medals for the 25 metre rapid fire pistol event at the 1992, 1996 and 2004 Olympics and also won two silver medals at this event, becoming the most successful Olympic shooter at this event. Schumann participated in seven consecutive Olympic Games from 1988 to 2012, setting a new record for most Olympic appearances by a German athlete.
Aloysius Martin "Lou" Thesz was an American professional wrestler. A twenty-five time world champion, he held the NWA World Heavyweight Championship three times for a combined total of 10 years, three months and nine days – longer than anyone else in history. Considered to be one of the last true shooters in professional wrestling, Thesz is widely regarded as one of the greatest wrestlers of all time. In Japan, Thesz was known as a 'God of Wrestling' and was called Tetsujin, which means 'Ironman', in respect for his speed, conditioning and expertise in catch wrestling. Alongside Karl Gotch and Billy Robinson, Thesz later helped train young Japanese wrestlers and mixed martial artists in catch wrestling.
Practical shooting, also known as dynamic shooting or action shooting, is a set of shooting sports where the competitors are trying to unite the three principles of precision, power, and speed, by using a firearm of a certain minimum power factor to score as many points as possible during the shortest amount of time. While scoring systems vary between organizations, each measures the time of which the course is completed, with penalties for inaccurate shooting. The courses are called "stages", and are shot individually by the shooters. Usually the shooter must move and shoot from several positions, fire under or over obstacles and in other unfamiliar positions. There are no standard exercises or set arrangement of the targets, and the courses are often designed so that the shooter must be inventive, and therefore the solutions of exercises sometimes varies between shooters.
Károly Takács was the first shooter to win two Olympic gold medals in the 25 metre rapid fire pistol event, both with his left hand after his right hand was seriously injured. He is the third known physically disabled athlete to have competed in the Olympic Games after George Eyser in 1904 and Olivér Halassy in 1928, followed by Liz Hartel in 1952, Neroli Fairhall in 1984 and Oscar Pistorius in 2012.
Robert Jennings Leatham is a professional shooter who is a 24-time USPSA National champion and 7-time International Practical Shooting Confederation (IPSC) World Champion.
The United States Practical Shooting Association(USPSA) is the national governing body of practical shooting in the United States under the International Practical Shooting Confederation (IPSC). Its over 35,000 active members and over 500 affiliated clubs make USPSA the largest practical shooting organization in the United States and the second largest region within IPSC after the Russian Federation of Practical Shooting. USPSA publishes a member magazine called USPSA Magazine six times a year.
William Willard McMillan was a world-class American sports shooter. Competing in ISSF 25 meter rapid fire pistol, he won an Olympic gold medal in 1960, was part of the American winning team at the 1952 World Championships, and won several gold and silver medals at the Pan American Games between 1955 and 1979.
The Steel Challenge is a speed shooting competition governed by the Steel Challenge Shooting Association (SCSA) that consists of eight standardized stages with steel targets in three sizes; small circular, large circular and square targets. Competitors are scored solely by the time it takes them to complete each stage, and the match winner is the competitor with the lowest overall time.
The Bianchi Cup is the NRA National Action Pistol Championship, a major action pistol tournament usually held over three days in late May, in Columbia, Missouri, at the Green Valley Rifle & Pistol Club. It has the largest purse of any tournament on the action pistol calendar and is the premier action pistol championship tournament in the world. The Bianchi Cup is the only major shooting tournament that has retained its original course of fire since its inception.
Todd Jarrett is an American competitive shooter, firearms instructor, and filmmaker. He has both national and World titles within practical shooting, holding four world titles, nine national titles and has won more than 50 US Area championships, as well as many other action shooting events. Jarrett is the only USPSA Triple Crown Winner and holds four USPSA National titles - Open, Limited, Production and Limited-10. Jarrett lives in Virginia.
The first season of the History Channel television series Top Shot commenced airing on June 6, 2010, and concluded on August 15, 2010. The season contained ten episodes, and was filmed over a period of 33 days in the spring in Santa Clarita, California. The winner of the season was British ex-Army captain Iain Harrison.
The second season of the History Channel television series Top Shot, titled Top Shot Reloaded commenced airing on February 8, 2011, and concluded on April 26, 2011. The season contained twelve episodes, and was filmed over a period of 35 days in the fall of 2010 in Santa Clarita, California. The winner of the season was American Chris Reed.
Éric Grauffel is a French sport shooter and firearms instructor with seven overall IPSC Handgun World Champion titles and one Junior World Champion title. He is known for having an unprecedented winning streak, and has won 191 IPSC President Medals. He is the son of the French national team trainer Gérard Grauffel. Additionally he has won the IPSC European Handgun Championships seven times.
The third season of the History Channel television series Top Shot, commenced airing on August 9, 2011. The season contained twelve episodes, and was filmed over a period of 35 days in Santa Clarita, California. The season was won by Dustin Ellermann.
The fourth season of the History channel television series Top Shot premiered on February 14, 2012.
Brian Zins is a retired United States Marine Corps Military Police Gunnery Sergeant. He is also a competitive shooter known for his proficiency with the M1911 pistol with which he holds various records at the NRA and other events. He is also known for competing in the second season of History Channel's marksmen competition Top Shot.
Taran Butler is an American sport shooter and world champion born in California. Growing up Taran was encouraged by his mother to learn shooting and began his shooting career in 1994 after winning a Bowling pin match at a local indoor range in the Los Angeles Valley. He competed with a Glock-24 he borrowed from stuntman Bruce Barber, who encouraged him to shoot at the Southwest Pistol League. In January 1995, Butler went to the Southwest Pistol League in Piru, California, with a Glock-21, and finished 7th overall out of 118 shooters. He continued to practice and became a USPSA Grand Master in 14 months. He was also the first Glock Grand Master shooter in the history of the sport.
Jessie Harrison, formerly known as Jessie Abbate and Jessie Duff, is an American sport shooter from McDonough, Georgia who took silver in the Open division Lady category at the 2017 IPSC Handgun World Shoot in Châteauroux, France and bronze at the 2011 IPSC Handgun World Shoot at Rhodes, Greece. In the IPSC US Handgun Championship she took gold in the Open division Lady category in 2015 and silver in 2013. She also has 16 USPSA Handgun Championship Lady category gold medals.
BJ Norris is an American sport shooter who in the 2005 IPSC Handgun World Shoot took silver in the Open division Junior category. He started shooting competitively in USPSA late in 2000 at age 11, and became really serious about shooting in the 2005 season. Besides being known as an IPSC/ USPSA shooter, he is also well known for his Steel Challenge participation where he became World Champion in 2011.