London 2012 Olympics: shooting guide Read Telegraph Sport's guide to the shooting event at the London 2012 Olympics.  

 

There are five events in each of the three disciplines (rifle, pistol and shotgun) with three for men and two for women. All the events are individual and require shooters to adopt different positions: standing, kneeling or prone, where they lie on their fronts. Rules vary according to the discipline, with distance, types of target, arm, firing position, number of shots (between 20 and 60) and the time within which the shots have to be fired all relevant factors. The rifle and pistol classes require shooters to fire bullets at 10-ring target within a given time while the shotgun events - trap and skeet - sees them firing lead pellets at clay targets, released on or after shooters command. The winner of the rifle and pistol events is the shooter with the highest score. During the qualification stages, the best eight shooters qualify and move to the final round where the 10 rings of the target are subdivided into ten “decimal” score zones (max 10.9). The final score is added to the qualification score to determine total scores and final rankings. Shotgun shooters score points by hitting a ‘clay’, which is made not of clay but of pitch and chalk. A hit is declared by the referee when the target is shot and at least one visible piece is seen to fall from it. The shooter who hits the most targets wins.