Shooting sport at the 1948 London Olympics took place at Bisley in Surrey. There were four events – the 300m free rifle, the 50m small bore rifle, the 50m pistol and the 25m rapid-fire pistol.
The event involved competitors from 26 countries, including the entire Olympic teams of Lebanon and Monaco.
The most extraordinary story of these Games involved Hungary’s Karoly Takacs, who took part in the 25m rapid-fire pistol.
In 1938 Takacs, a sergeant in the Hungarian Army, was a member of his country’s world champion pistol shooting team. During an army exercise a grenade exploded in his right hand – his pistol hand – and shattered it.
“My right hand was completely destroyed and they gave me an artificial arm,” he later recalled. While recovering in hospital he decided to teach himself to shoot with his left hand. Within a year he had won the national title.
In 1948, aged 38, Takacs qualified for the Olympics. The favourite, Argentina’s world champion and world record holder Carlos Enrique Diaz Saenz Valiente, was surprised to see him and asked why he was in London.
Takacs replied: “I’m here to learn.” He then hit all the targets, winning gold and beating Saenz Valiente’s record by 10 points with a total of 580. As they stood on the podium Saenz Valiente, the silver medallist with 571, turned to the Hungarian and said: “You have learned enough.”
Four years later in Helsinki Takacs made a successful defence of his title, totalling 579 to finish one point ahead of his compatriot Szilard Kun, with Gheorghe Lichiardopol of Romania taking bronze and Saenz Valiente finishing fourth.
Aged 46, Takacs made a second defence of his title at the 1956 Games in Melbourne, finishing eighth with 575 points.