The men’s and women’s skeet events will be a part of the five shotgun events at the Rio Olympics in Brazil. These two events will take place on 12th and 13th August – Men’s skeet starts on 12th August but the finals will take place the next day. Whereas, the women’s event will start and finish on 12th August 2016.
India will have its experienced shotgun shooter in Mairaj Ahmed Khan who will participate in the men’s event. His performance at the ISSF World Cup held in Rio De Janeiro was exceptional as he won the silver medal in the same event. Therefore, it could be said that the 40-year old shooter may well get India a medal.
The country, however, will not have any participant in the women’s category.
What is the skeet event?
The men’s and women’s skeet events work on the same guidelines. Skeet shooting is an International Shooting Sport Federation event where the shooters are supposed to shoot on eight different stations to hit doubles of orange clay targets which are thrown from two houses that are located at the left and right end of the range.
A unique feature of the event is that the two houses have names – the house on the left is called High House, and the targets thrown from it are called Mark. Whereas the house on the right is called Low House, and its targets are called Pull.
In both the men’s and women’s event, athletes are supposed to shoot one-by-one.
Rules
The only difference between the events for both the genders is that in the men’s event, a competitor has to shoot 125 targets which are divided into five rounds of 25 targets each. Whereas, in the women’s event, each competitor has to shoot 75 targets which are divided into three rounds of 25 targets each.
The qualification rounds of both the events involve up to six athletes, who shoot from stations numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8. These shooters have to rotate from left to right and shoot single or double targets according to a fixed scheme.
Semi-final stage
The semi-final stage of the event will have the top-six athletes from the qualification phase. These athletes will now have to shoot 16 targets each from stations numbered 3, 4, 5 and then 4 again.
In this event, the semifinals’ targets are always thrown as doubles and the athletes switch to the following station after every two doubles. This semifinal round concludes when every athlete has completed his/her four targets from stations numbered 3, 4 and 5, and after the last four targets are shot from station number 4.
Final
The final round of the skeet event consists of the top two shooters from the semifinal round. These shooters are then supposed to compete in the gold medal match while the 3rd and 4th best semifinalists have to compete in the bronze medal match.
These two medal matches are also conducted with the same sets of rules and regulations like the semifinals. The two finalists and the two bronze medallist are to shoot a total of 16 targets from stations numbered 3, 4 and 5.
Whichever shooter shoots the most targets wins. Incase of a tie, shoot-offs are conducted to decide the winner.
Indians at the event:
Men: Mairaj Ahmed Khan
Women: None
London 2012 result:
Men
Gold: Vincent Hancock (USA)
Silver: Anders Golding (Denmark)
Bronze: Nasser Al Attiyah (Qatar)
Women
Gold: Chiara Cainero (Italy)
Silver: Kimberly Rhode (USA)
Bronze: Christine Wenzel (Germany)
