Shooting

cctv.com 07-27-2004 09:21

Shooting is considered one of the most popular sports internationally. It requires good physical and psychological condition, as well as technical perfection. It is open to men, women and children of all ages for recreation. On the championship level, it is the only sport where you will see a great difference in age between competitors. For instance, Konstantin Lukashyk, a 17 year old competitor representing the Commonwealth of Independent States, won the gold medal in the Men鈥檚 50m Pistol event at the Barcelona Olympic Games in 1992. The runner-up was the 58 year old Swedish competitor, Ragnar Skanaker, who had won the gold at the 1972 Munich Games and silver medals at the Los Angeles and Seoul Games (1984, 1988).

ATHENS 2004 Shooting

All Shooting events in the ATHENS 2004 Games will take place in the Markopoulo Olympic Shooting Centre, on the following ranges:

The 10-metre Shooting range (with eighty firing points for air gun events and four Running target stands).

The 25-metre Shooting range (with ten stands of five targets each).

The 50-metre Shooting range (with eighty firing points).

The indoor Shooting range where the finals will be held (with ten airgun Shooting points; six Running target stands; twenty Shooting points for the 50-metre events; and six stands of five targets each for the 25-metre events).

Four Clay Target Shooting ranges, three for the qualification round and one for the finals.

The competition programme spans nine days, from 14 to 22 August. There will be 390 men and women competitors taking part in the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens.

History

Some form of Shooting has been around since prehistoric times, when men hunted prey to secure food or protect themselves from enemies. The ancient Greeks had dove-shooting contests in honour of their gods. By the 10th century, Indians, Slavs, Celts and Germans all practiced similar kinds of rituals. The invention of gunpowder provided great impetus to the sport, for it led to the development of the gun. The founding of Shooting clubs started in numerous European towns - in Germany and Switzerland, as early as the 13th and 14th centuries.

Little by little, Shooting as a sport became very popular; 1907 saw the creation of what is known today as the International Shooting Sport Federation, originally called the International Shooting Union. Men鈥檚 Shooting was one of the nine sports on the programme of the first Olympic Games of modern times in Athens in 1896. In the Paris Games in 1900, live pigeons were used as moving targets; this was eventually considered unethical and unsporting, so after 1900 the pigeons were replaced with clay targets (鈥榗lay pigeons鈥. The women鈥檚 Shooting disciplines were first included in the Los Angeles 1984 Games.

Greece鈥檚 first Olympic victories came in 1896. The medallists were: Georgios Frangoudis (pistol, 25 m, gold; rifle, 300 m, silver); Georgios Orfanidis (rifle, 300 m, gold; pistol, 25 m, silver); Pantelis Karasevdas (gras gun, 200 m, gold); and P. Pavlidis (gras gun, 200 m, silver).

At the Mid-Olympics of 1906, there was a gold medal for Konstantinos Skarlatos (precision pistol, 25 m); silvers for I. Perridis (trap) and An. Metaxas (double trap); and three bronzes, for G.Skotadis and A.Rhangavis (revolver, 25 m). The one success of the Greek delegation at the 1920 Games was a silver medal for revolver.

The Hellenic Shooting Federation (SKOE) was founded in 1932.

Source:The official website of the ATHENS 2004 Olympic and Paralympic Games

Editor:Wang  Source:CCTV.com