A guide to Olympic shooting

Everything you need to know about Olympic shooting, from disciplines, rules and regulations to the British sportsmen and women striving for glory this year

The first shot ever fired as part of the modern Olympics was at the inaugural 1896 Games in Athens in the 200-metre military rifle competition. It wasn’t fired by the luxuriantly moustachioed Pantelis Karasevdas, the law student who would go on to take gold, but by the Queen Consort of Greece, Olga Constantinovna; a ceremonial shot to open the proceedings. She would be the only woman to pull a trigger in the Games for 74 years.

Shooting has featured in all but two of the Summer Olympics since that first competition, although some disciplines, such as live pigeon shooting, running deer and 1,000-yard rifle, only made short-lived appearances. (Despite popular myth, duelling has never been featured.) While it was one of the original nine Olympic sports, shooting wouldn’t appear in the Paralympic Games until the fifth edition: Toronto 1976. This hasn’t stopped Great Britain’s Paralympic athletes from rising up the medal table: they currently hold seven golds and 28 in total, fast catching up to Britain’s Olympic tally of 13 golds and 47 medals overall.

The sport was also one of 10 to be featured in the first-ever Olympics Esports Week in Singapore last year, where the contest was held on a special island created within the cartoonish video game Fortnite. It was shooting the likes of which Pantelis Karasevdas could have never imagined: picture doing biathlon round a neon, Escher-like landscape dressed as Mr Blobby, and you’re some of the way there.

Great Britain is a stalwart supporter of the shooting events but forming a team is not entirely straightforward. Given the number of nations eligible to take part, a country can’t simply send its chosen athletes to compete in the Olympics at will. Take men’s skeet, for example, in which there were just 28 places available in total, with one reserved for the host nation. Instead, places had to be earned by individual shooters distinguishing themselves in an international competition cycle running between August 2022 and June 2024. Countries could secure up to two quota places for every discipline but given the fierce level of competition it’s all too easy to end up with none.

The Paralympians at Paris have gone through a similar process to earn places but also first had to meet the minimum impairment criteria set for the sport and then be classified into one of two bandings to ensure different impairment groups with the same level of functional ability can compete together.

After all that, it’s the host nation that owns the place, not the athlete, meaning no one is guaranteed even a sniff of croissant until Team GB is officially announced. Essentially, the athletes you’ll see on screen this summer, no matter how they do on the day, have already achieved a great deal just by making the cut.

The shooting disciplines explained

To those familiar with shooting, no discipline will look particularly alien. Just imagine that instead of a judgemental labrador you’re taking every vital shot in front of a noisy crowd – not to mention a television audience of millions. There are three types of gun used in the 15 Olympic shooting events – shotgun, rifle and pistol – whereas the 13 Paralympic events are centred around pistol and rifle. Men and women largely compete as equals, with mixed and team events part of the billing.

Olympic shotgun

Men’s double trap, which Peter Wilson so memorably won in 2012, was dropped from the Olympic programme after the 2016 games. This leaves five events: men’s trap, women’s trap, men’s skeet, women’s skeet, and skeet mixed team. For all events shotguns must be no larger than 12-bore, and ammunition cannot be heavier than 24g.

Olympic trap is contested over five rounds of 25 clays, followed by a final of up to 60 clays for those that make the top six. Under the ground, in front of the shooters, is a bunker containing a line of 15 clay traps that fire down-range at a variety of angles and elevations. Targets are presented in random order but the competitors are guaranteed two lefts, two rights and a centre clay on each stand.

Olympic skeet, meanwhile, has just two traps: the high house on the left and the low house on the right, both firing crossers. The sequence in which these are presented – in singles and pairs – is fixed, and is shot by progressing over eight stands positioned around a semicircle. Unlike their trap counterparts, athletes cannot start with the gun to their shoulder, and after calling ‘pull’ could be presented with a bird instantly or after a delay of up to three seconds. Skeet competitors also shoot five rounds of 25 to qualify for the final. In the mixed team event, both athletes complete multiple rounds individually and their score is combined.

Olympic rifle

All live-fire rifles must be single shot and chambered for .22LR ammunition, while air rifles must be .177 and not exceed 71/2 joules. There are also strict regulations for every aspect of the kit, from shooting jackets, trousers and gloves to slings and mats. The five events in this category are: men’s, women’s and mixed team 10- metre air rifle; and men’s and women’s 50-metre rifle three positions.

The 10-metre air rifle is shot from a standing position. Every shooter has 75 minutes to take 60 shots at a 10-ring target, and the eight highest-scoring competitors go through to the final. In the team event, both shooters have 50 minutes to take 40 shots. In the 50-metre rifle competitions, athletes have two hours and 45 minutes to shoot a total of 120 rounds at the 10-ring target: 40 prone, 40 kneeling and 40 standing. Finals for rifle events are structured in an elimination format, where the weakest is removed every couple of rounds until there’s an often tense shootoff for gold or silver.

Olympic pistol

Pistol events mirror those for the rifle but all competitions are fired standing and only one hand may be used to hold the gun. Events are men’s, women’s and mixed 10-metre air pistol; men’s 25-metre rapid-fire pistol; and women’s 25-metre pistol. As with rifles, anything other than open sights is banned. Live-fire competitions use .22 pistols with five-shot magazines to shoot at a 10-ring target. The Olympic hopefuls will take 60 shots in total, split into two sets of 30 that are themselves divided into six sets of five. The women’s competitions allow for five minutes per set of five shots, whereas the men must shoot each in eight seconds, then six seconds and finally in four.

Paralympic rifle

The nine rifle competitions are split between two classifications: SH1, a class for those with lower limb impairments, and SH2, for those with (potentially additional) upper limb impairments. The format and the calibres are largely the same as in the Olympics, although in prone events competitors may rest their elbows on a table for stability. Scoring is significantly different: while the maximum score at the Olympics per single shot is 10, here it is 10.9: a change brought in after 2012 to avoid multiple competitors having perfect scores. Don’t think this implies it is easy – in 10-metre air rifle the central ring is half a millimetre wide.

The events are: men’s SH1, women’s SH1 and mixed SH2 10-metre air rifle standing; both SH1 and SH2 events for mixed 10-metre air rifle prone; men’s and women’s SH1 50-metre rifle three positions; and both SH1 and SH2 events for 50-metre air rifle prone.

Paralympic pistol

This is in the SH1 classification, and comprises men’s and women’s 10-metre air pistol, mixed 25-metre pistol and mixed 50-metre pistol.

Like rifle events, the pistol finals feature the top eight competitors battling over just 20 shots. Their previous scores don’t count, and with competitors eliminated one by one after the first eight shots, competition can become intense.

Team GB hopefuls

Matt Skelhon – air rifle SH1

Matt Skelhon has been shooting since the age of 12 but it wasn’t until after a car accident in 2005 that he found out about competitive target shooting. He made a dramatic entrance on to the world stage not long after: “I went to Beijing more for the experience in preparation for London 2012,” he says. “I never expected to come away with gold – it was insane.”

While Skelhon is looking forward to having his family share the experience with him in Paris, being a returning medal winner is not without its stresses: “Previous success definitely increases expectations and pressure, not only from other people but from myself.”

Seonaid McIntosh – rifle

She may be the most successful British female rifle shooter of all time but, in Commonwealth Games terms, Seonaid McIntosh is “still behind on the family medal table”. She grew up in a family of competitive shooters and says: “Although I did try my best to do something else, I was bitten by the shooting bug after London 2012, where my sister competed.”

This will be McIntosh’s second Olympics. “I’m excited and nervous to compete,” she admits. “We all work so hard for so long and it all comes down to that one match on that one day, and that’s what people remember. I know it sounds negative but I’m actually looking forward to it being over. I think my body is really ready to be rid of all the stress.”

Lucy Hall – women’s trap

Lucy Hall is just 20 but has been competing for around seven years. “I’m fortunate to have been guided by two great people,” she says of her grandfather and father, both of whom competed internationally. Her father also founded The Gun Room in Holme-on- Spalding-Moor, which Hall helps to run.

When asked what she wanted to be in primary school, Hall wrote ‘win a gold medal at the Olympic shooting’. Securing a quota place for Paris early on therefore initially led to nerves: “I’d won something really important to me, then got over the high and realised that the Olympics is actually going to be a reality. I cannot wait to shoot that first target and get on with the competition,” she enthuses.

Nathan Hales – men’s trap

Given that his mother had a sporting agency and his father shot competitively, it’s not a surprise that Nathan Hales loves shooting in all its forms. When he’s not stalking or shooting game, Hales is training three to four times a week. He credits his parents and partner Charlotte for supporting him in the intense journey towards the Olympics.

With fewer opportunities to win quota places for trap in this Olympic cycle and more pressure in each, Hales was relieved to win his spot early on. Since then he has used the security to attend competitions based on how well they fit into his overall training programme. “It’s freed me up to choose where I want to try to peak and be in the right place for the Games,” he explains. Hales has worked on his programme with coaches Marco Micheli, Peter Wilson and the late Kevin Gill. Wilson was invaluable in preparing Hales for the Olympic experience. We can only hope that, like Wilson, he gets to fulfil his lifetime ambition and also experience what it feels like to win the gold.