OLYMPIC HISTORY

Shooting had a friend in the highest of places when the Modern Olympic Games opened in Athens in 1896. None other, in fact, than Pierre de Coubertin, who was a pistol shooting champion for France. The first president of the International Olympic Committee introduced four pistol and two rifle events at the first modern Olympiad. The sport has featured at all bar two Games since, St Louis in 1904 and Amsterdam in 1928 not having staged shooting events.

As the sport evolved from Olympiad to Olympiad, team events and the use of military revolvers had all been intorduced and dropped by 1948. The stars of those early events, including the running deer shooting contest, included a certain Oscar Swahn, of Sweden. Swahn shot his way to three gold, a silver and two bronze medals from 1908 to 1920. At his last Games, he finished second as a member of the team running deer shooting, double trap squad from Sweden and thus, at 72 years and 279 days of age, became the oldest competitor and medal winner in Olympic history.

His record-breaking did not stop there, however, and over two days at the Stockholm Games of 1912 he established two more Olympic milestones which have stood the test of time. First, he became the oldest medal winner in an individual event, by taking the bronze in the Running Deer, double-shot at the age of 64 years and 256 days; then, he became the oldest ever gold medal winner when triumphant as a member of the Swedish Running Deer, single-shot team at the age of 64 years 257 days.

Skeet events were first seen in 1968 but women would not shoot in women-only events until 1976 and not in individual events until 1984, before which all events were open to both men and women.

The rapid-fire pistol title has been retained by three men: Karoly Takacs, of Hungary, in 1948 and 1952; Jozef Zapedzki, of Poland, in 1968 and 1972; and latterly by Ralf Schumann, of Germany, in 1992 and 1996. In Sydney, Schumann will attempt to become the first to win three successive titles.

Takacs' tale is one of courage. In 1938, while serving as an army sergeant and being a member of Hungary's world championship pistol team, a grenade exploded in his right hand, causing severe damage. He refused to let that stop him shooting, however, and taught himself to shoot with his left hand. In 1948, he won the first of his two Olympic gold medals in a world record of 580.

The only man to retain the small-bore rifle, three positions title is Britain's Malcolm Cooper (LINK GB MEDALLISTS), who equalled the 1,173 points world record standard of Russians Viktor Vlasov and Vladimir Lvov for his first victory in 1984 and then relied on another Russian to retain the title in 1988: a member of the BBC broadcast crew accidentally knocked over Cooper's rifle and damaged the stock a week before competition, but the champion was able to repair the gun in time with the help of a gunsmith from the Soviet team. Alister Allan, of Britain, finished third to Cooper in 1984 and second to him in 1988, one place ahead of Russia's Kirill Ivanov.

Britain has had a good deal of success in shooting events. As national triumphs go, they come no more comprehensive than the result of the 1908 small-bore rifle, prone event. The top eight finishers were all British. But pity poor Philip Plater, who, according to Ian Buchanan's research for his book British Olympians, became the Olympic champion that never was. Plater was not among the maximum 12 selected for Britain but the netry form of George Barnes, eventually the bronze medal winner, was lost. Plater was given the 12th slot. However, Barnes's form was found and he competed. No-one had notived that Plater was now shooting as the 13th member of the team. He set a world record, was declared Olympic champion and then subsequently told that his result would not stand as he was not an official member of the British team.

Luciano Giovannetti, of Italy, is the only man to have retained the trap title. A gunshop owner from Pistoia won his first title in 1980, when he celebrated victory by tossing his cap in the air and shooting a hole through it. He retained the title aged 38 in 1984.

The sensation of the 1992 Games was Zhang Shan, from Nanchong, Sichuan province, China. In winning the skeet title, she became the first female shooter in history to win an Olympic open title. The first woman medal winner was Margaret Murdock, of the US, who took the silver medal in the small-bore rifle, three positions, in 1976.

In one of those developments in which federations are often judged to have shot themselves in the foot, Zhang was barred from defending her title in 1996 because the skeet event was restricted to men. In Sydney, women will take part in their own skeet event and Zhang will be back to test her skills within the limits of her gender.