Shooting at the 1896 Summer Olympics – Men's 300 metre free rifle

Men's 300 metre free rifle at the Games of the I Olympiad
Georgios Orphanidis (1897)
Venue	Kallithea shooting range
Dates	April 11–12
Competitors	20 from 3 nations
Winning score	1583
Medalists
Georgios Orphanidis  Griechenland Ioannis Frangoudis  Griechenland Viggo Jensen  Dänemark

The men's 300 metre free rifle was one of the five sport shooting events on the Shooting at the 1896 Summer Olympics programme. The second rifle event and last of the shooting events, the free rifle was begun on 11 April. Each marksman fired 40 shots, in four strings of ten. 25 men entered the event, though only 20 actually competed. They represented three nations. Frangoudis led after the first day, but when the event was continued on 12 April, Orphanidis took the lead and held on to win first place. He hit the target 37 times.

Background

This was the only appearance of the men's 300 metre free rifle event without position requirements. A three-positions event would be introduced in 1900 (along with team and individual position medals) and held 11 times between then and 1972.

Competition format

The competition had each shooter fire 40 shots, in 4 strings of 10, at a range of 300 metres. Scoring involved multiplying target hits by points scored in each string.

Zeitplan

The free rifle was the last of the shooting events, starting in the afternoon of day 6 of competition. It went until it was too dark to shoot, then was postponed until the next morning. It finished at 1 p.m. on Sunday. Precise start times for each session are not known.

Date		Zeit	Round
Gregorian	Julian
Saturday, 11 April 1896 Sunday, 12 April 1896	Saturday, 30 March 1896 Sunday, 31 March 1896		Final

Results

Rank	Shooter	Nation	Score	Hits	1	2	3	4
	Georgios Orphanidis	Griechenland	1,583	37	328	520	420	315
	Ioannis Frangoudis	Griechenland	1,312	31	470	192	440	210
	Viggo Jensen	Dänemark	1,305	31	392	423	280	210
4	Anastasios Metaxas	Griechenland	1,102	Unknown
5	Pantelis Karasevdas	Griechenland	1,039	Unknown
6–18	Antelothanasis	Griechenland	Unknown
	Georgios Diamantis	Griechenland	Unknown'
	Alexios Fetsios	Griechenland	Unknown
	Karakatsanis	Griechenland	Unknown
	Hatzidakis	Griechenland	Unknown
	Nikolaos Levidis	Griechenland	Unknown
	Sidney Merlin	Great Britain	Unknown
	Xenon Mikhailidis	Griechenland	Unknown
	Moustakopoulos	Griechenland	Unknown
	Panagiotis Pavlidis	Griechenland	Unknown
	Alexandros Theofilakis	Griechenland	Unknown
	Ioannis Theofilakis	Griechenland	Unknown
	Nikolaos Trikoupis	Griechenland	Unknown
—	Leonidas Langakis	Griechenland	DNF
	Ioannis Vourakis	Griechenland	DNF

References

• Lampros, S.P.; Polites, N.G.; De Coubertin, Pierre; Philemon, P.J. & Anninos, C. (1897). The Olympic Games: BC 776 – AD 1896. Athens: Charles Beck. (Digitally available at [1])
• Mallon, Bill & Widlund, Ture (1998). The 1896 Olympic Games. Results for All Competitors in All Events, with Commentary. Jefferson: McFarland. ISBN 0-7864-0379-9. (Excerpt available at [2])
• Smith, Michael Llewellyn (2004). Olympics in Athens 1896. The Invention of the Modern Olympic Games. London: Profile Books. ISBN 1-86197-342-X.