China and India will field the largest teams of 21 shooting sport athletes at the Paris 2024 Olympics, where competition at the Chateauroux range will start on July 27, the day after the Opening Ceremony.
Today’s Final Entry List release numbers 340 athletes from 81 National Olympic Committees and an additional two members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Refugee Team. Taking into account Double Starter athletes, who compete in an event for which their NOC has an Olympic Quota place but may also taken part in a second event, the total of 342 athletes will be involved in 432 starts.
Georgia has confirmed the entry in the 25m pistol women event of 55-year-old Nino Salukvadze, who is thus set to compete in her her tenth Olympics, thus matching the current record for Games appearances held by Canada’s equestrian athlete Ian Millar.
Uniquely, Salukvadze’s Olympic appearances will be consecutive as Millar, who made his first Games appearance at Munich in 1972 and his last at London in 2012, was unable to compete in the 1980 Moscow Games due to Canada being among the countries who boycotted those Olympics following the Russian invasion of Afghanistan.
Salukvadze was also involved in another piece of Olympic history at the Rio 2016 Games, where she became the first mother to compete on the same team as her son.
The Georgian, who has a complete set of Olympic medals, will not be the oldest shooting sport athlete at the Games, however. That distinction falls to 60-year-old Leonel Martinez of Venezuela, who will compete in the trap men event.
There is no place in the Swiss team for 15-year-old Emely Jaeggi, who won an Olympic quota place this year in the 50m rifle 3 positions and would have become the youngest ever shooting sport Olympian had she competed in Paris this summer.
The Swiss spots for that event go to 26-year-old Chiara Leone and the 30-year-old defending champion Nina Christen, respectively ranked world number three and four.
That means the youngest athlete competing at Paris 2024 will be 15-year-old Mohammed Beyranvand, who won an Olympic Quota place for Iran and will join Martinez in the trap men event.
The list also includes two members of the IOCRefugee Team in Edilio Centeno Nieves, who will compete in the 10m air pistol men, and 10m air rifle women competitor Luna Solomon, who also took part in the Tokyo 2020 Games.
The United States – second at the Tokyo 2020 but leaders of the all-time Olympic medal table – has named 17 athletes, including Vincent Hancock, who will be seeking a fourth skeet men title.
The Republic of Korea team of 16 includes the two women who have broken the world record in the 25m pistol this season, Yang Jiin and Kim Jeji.
Hosts France have named 15 athletes, with their 25m rapid-fire pistol places being filled by defending champion and Rio 2016 silver medallist Jean Quiquampoix and Clement Bessaguet, the ISSF Male Athlete of the Year for 2023, who has won silver at the last two World Championships.
Italy will also send 15 athletes, including Rio 2016 skeet men champion Gabriele Rossetti and Jessica Rossi, the London 2012 trap women champion.
Seonaid McIntosh, world No.1 in the 50m rifle 3 positions women event, is one of a six-strong British team.
Germany’s Anna Janssen, world No.2 in the 50m rifle 3 positions and world No.1 in the 10m air rifle, is one of 13 athletes named by Germany who also include 37-year-old Rio 2016 25m rapid-fire pistol champion Christian Reitz and world 25m pistol women champion Doreen Vennekamp, the ISSF Female Athlete of the Year for 2023.
Final Paris 2024 Entry Lists can be found here: https://www.issf-sports.org/competitions/2728/information