Who was the oldest Olympic medallist?

[6mm Shoot]

Hi all.

His name is Oscar Swahn. He was 72 when he competed in his last Olympic event. He won a silver medal. That was in 1920. His son competed along side of him and won a Gold medal at the age of 64. That was in 1912. They both have a number of medals. The event they competed in was shooting. Something called the running deer event.

The event consisted of a target moving across 20 metres and being shot at from 100 metres. They had a single shot event and a double shot event. They used centre rifles. The last time it was shot was in 1948.

Now that sounds like some good shooting events. I wonder why it was stopped. I would have liked to have seen such a event. That is one I would have liked to try.

 

[BE Mike]

Running Target events history



50m Running Target Men

Running Target was another event where changes were made to the target and the distance to the target, but maintain the basic concept of the event.

The object of running target is fire a shot at a target as it moves back and forth between two walls. A shot(s) must be fired each time the target is exposed. This is the only international shooting event where optical sights are permitted.

This event had a long history in the Olympic Games prior to it’s introduction in the WSC in 1949. At this time it was called Running Deer as the target was in the shape of a deer. Distance to the target was 100 meters with a 20 meter open where the target would be exposed. The competitors used center fire rifles. There were three events conducted. The first called "Single Runs" as a single shot had to be fired at each exposure of the targets. The second was "Double Runs" where it was required to fire 2 shots at each exposure of the target and the third was an aggregate of a given number of single and double shot runs. In 1952 the single / double run event was dropped.

In an effort to reduce the cost of constructing ranges the running deer event was removed from the program in 1966. At first a target in the shape of a Roebuck was proposed, but eventually was replaced with that of a wild boar. It became known as the Running Boar event. The distance to the target was 50 meters with a 10 meter opening for the exposure of the target. In 1966 one event called "Normal Runs" was conducted. In this event the target was exposed for a 5 seconds, each time that it crossed the opening. The event consisted of 20 shots, 10 from right to left and 10 from left to right.

In the following championship, in 1970, the "Normal Run" event was altered to include "fast runs" which had a target exposure of 2.5 seconds. This became known as the Running Boar 30+30 event.

50m Running Target Mixed Men

A second event was also added at this time that was referred to as the Running Boar Mixed Runs". This was a 40 shot event consisting 20 slow runs and 20 fast runs that were exposed at a random bases so that the competitor did not know which speed exposed. Today Running Boar is still included in the WSC but it is now called Running Target.

10m Running Target Men

In 1982 a 10 meter events was added to the WSC. It had a distance of 10 meters to the target with a 2 meter opening and the rifle used is 4.5 mm air rifle. It was a 40 shot event consisting of 20 slow runs and 20 fast runs. The target was a reduce of the 50 meter wild boar target.

In 1990 the number of shots was increased to a total of 60. 30 slow runs and 30 fast runs. The target was changed to two circular targets instead of the figure of the wild boar.

10m Running Target Mixed Men

In 1994 a 10 meter mixed run event was added to the program.

 

[npwinder]

Here's a video of Mattias Bergman training on it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1fknd9NfrE

 

[Kutnupe14]

Three gun should be an Olympic sport

 

[BE Mike]

Three gun should be an Olympic sport

Actually, rather than the U.S., it is other countries who drive shooting for the Olympics. In other countries, shooting champions are well known throughout. In the U.S., medal winners in the shooting sports are unknowns. Ironically, some U.S. shooters are well-known and honored only outside of this country. I doubt that there will ever be any new shooting sports added to the Olympics, especially those where the ownership of the firearms used in the events is highly restricted or banned for civilians.