Overview

From just five shooting events at the inaugural 1896 Olympic Games to 15 today, the sport has grown steadily alongside the advance in firearms technology. Shooting has featured in every Olympic Games since 1896.

At the Olympic Games, there are nine events for men and six for women. The events are divided into three groups: rifle, pistol and shotgun. The rifle and pistol events are held on shooting ranges, with competitors aiming at targets from distances of 10 metres, 25 metres and 50 metres. In the shotgun event, competitors shoot at clay targets propelled in a series of different directions.

Marksmen need to be as steady as possible to be accurate. In order to achieve this, they use relaxation techniques to drop their heartbeat to half its normal rate, fire between heartbeats and use blinkers to hit a bullseye, which appears as no more than a tiny dot in the distance.

Team Qatar’s most successful result in Olympic shooting came at London 2012 when Nasser Al Attiyah won Olympic bronze in skeet shooting.