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by Ron Fimrite
Whether or not he wins the gold medal today in the 50-meter free pistol competition at the Wolf Creek Shooting Complex, Sweden's Ragnar Skanåker will make history at these Atlanta Games by becoming, at 62, the only competitor in any sport to appear in seven consecutive Olympics. Skanåker won the gold in the free pistol in his Games debut in 1972. Then, following a fifth-place finish and a seventh in the next two Olympics, respectively, he won back-to-back silver medals in '84 and '88 and then a bronze in Barcelona.
A last-shot 10 in Barcelona would have given Skanåker two golds 20 years apart.
photograph by
He could just as easily have had three golds by now, for in '84 he finished only one point behind the winner, China's Xu Haifeng, and in '92, in one of the most thrilling matches in Olympic shooting history, he was just one shot away from victory. In the free pistol each competitor has 2 hours to fire 60 shots from a .22-caliber target gun. The top eight marksmen advance to the finals, where a shooter has 75 seconds to fire each of 10 rounds. With one shot remaining in Barcelona, Skanåker, Konstantin Lukashik of Belarus and Wang Yifu of China were in a virtual dead heat. A perfect last-shot score of 10 could have won the gold medal for any of them, but each scored a 9, Lukashik finishing with 658.00 points, Wang with 657.92 and Skanåker with 657.91.
Aiming at a target 50 meters distant and less than 19-1/2 inches in diameter, with a bull's-eye two inches wide, requires a steady hand and a sharp eye. Most of the competitors, therefore, are many years younger than Skanåker. At the 1988 Seoul Games, the then 54-year-old Skanåker was at least twice the age of the other top-five finishers. In Barcelona, Lukashik was only 16, Skanåker's junior by 42 years, and two of the Swede's own teammates were 21 and 18 years younger than he was. So Skanåker is indeed a phenomenon, an old-timer with nerves and the vision of a much younger man.
Skanåker began shooting competitively some 42 years ago, when, as a 20-year-old military jet pilot, he took up the rifle. He soon switched to the pistol, mainly, he said, because he found the required leather clothing for rifle competition far too cumbersome and uncomfortable. Besides, he says, as a pilot he already wore a sidearm, "so I had to train with it anyway." He finished 67th in his first international pistol competition, in 1966, and then went on to win three world championships in addition to his Olympic medals.
Skanåker is the latest representative of a strong Swedish tradition in marksmanship. Early in this century the father-son rifle team of Oscar and Alfred Swahn combined to win 15 Olympic team and individual medals at four Olympics. And pistol shooter Torsten Ullmann won a gold in 1936 and a bronze in '48 in three Olympic appearances. But in terms of long-term excellence, Skanåker surpasses all his countrymen. And if he should decide to try to extend his string to eight straight Olympics and qualify for the Sydney Games in 2000, he will also match the record for the most Olympic appearances, now held jointly by equestrian riders Piero d'Inzeo and Raimondo d'Inzeo of Italy and yachtsmen Paul V. Elvstrom of Denmark, Durwood Knowles of Great Britain and Hubert Raudaschi of Austria. Those five sportsmen all competed in the Games from 1948 to '92.
For that matter, if Skanåker should by chance win a gold in 2000, he would also become the oldest of all Olympic champions, beating the record of his countryman Oscar Swahn, who was 64 when he was a member of the winning Swedish rifle team in 1912. Skanåker isn't certain he wants to carry on that much longer, but he does plan to be a part of the Sydney Games at least as coach of his wife, Anna, who is, at 30, a world-class air pistol markswoman. However, Anna is convinced her husband will raise his sights one more time. "He has to," she says, "to get that last record."
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SI Olympic Dailies
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