Shooting sport events at the 1896 Athens Games took place at a newly-constructed range at Kallithea, in the southern outskirts of the Greek capital.
Home athletes earned nine of the 15 medals available, winning in three of the five events.
Pantelis Karasevdas secured victory the 200m military rifle, claiming the silver medal on offer to winners at these first modern Games, with compatriots Pavlos Pavlidis and Nicolaos Trikupis finishing second and third.
The 300m free rifle 3 positions title went to home shooter Georgios Orphanidis, with fellow Greek Ioannis Frangoudis taking second place ahead of Denmark’s Viggo Jensen.
Frangoudis showed his virtuosity by winning the 25m rapid fire pistol competition from Orphanidis, with third place going to Denmark’s Holger Nielsen.
Victory in the 25m military pistol event went to Lieutenant John Paine of the United States, a graduate of Harvard University, who had travelled to the Games as part of the Boston Athletic Association team, taking a freighter across the Atlantic and then travelling via Paris.
There he had surprised his older brother Sumner, who was working as a gunsmith at Gastinne-Renette Galleries armoury, and persuaded him to join in his Olympic quest.
Sumner Paine “was completely unaware of the impending Olympic Games and his brother failed to inform him that he was even on route to Paris,” according to The Olympic Century.
The brothers – regarded as two of the world’s finest shots – went to the armoury to select weapons and ammunition. Unsure of what would be required, they chose eight weapons and 3,500 rounds of ammunition before setting off for Athens, where they arrived on April 7 – the day before the shooting competition began.
As Josh Barr writes for usopm.org: “The Paines were disqualified from the first event for not having the appropriate guns. They soon noticed that the targets were smaller than standardized American targets and also that the sunlight glared off the polished steel of their guns. So they fashioned a homemade fix, Sumner Paine later wrote, lighting a match and holding it over their guns so that the smoke would dull the shine.”
According to Igniting the Flame: America’s First Olympic Team the Paines were interspersing their shots by taking sips of whiskey from their flasks.
John Paine totalled 442 points to win the 25m military pistol event with 25 hits in 30 shots. Sumner was second with 380, nearly double the total of the third-placer, and earned the bronze medal on offer to runners-up. It was not until 1904 that gold, silver and bronze medals were introduced to the Games.
The Paine brothers - descendants of Robert Treat Paine, who signed the Declaration of Independence - had agreed that if one of them won an event in Athens they would sit out the next event. Thus, John Paine left it to Sumner to win the 30m Target Pistol event, which he did with a total of 442.
After returning to Massachusetts, John Paine served in the Spanish-American War and then became an investment banker, dying in 1951 aged 81.
According to Harvard Magazine, in 1901 Sumner Paine returned home early from work to find his wife with another man. Paine chased the man out of the house and fired four bullets without hitting him. Police later decided that Paine had shown restraint by missing the man as he could easily have hit him if he had wanted to do so.
Sumner Paine died of pneumonia in 1904 at the age of 35.
John Paine’s great granddaughter, Cecile Tucker, competed in rowing at the Atlanta 1996 Olympic Games.
A total of 61 athletes from seven nations competed at the 1896 Olympics – 50 from the host country, three from the United States, three from Denmark, two from Great Britain and one each from France, Switzerland and Germany.
President of the Games sub-committee for shooting was HRH Prince Nicholas of Greece.