Free pistol at the Olympics

The "free" pistol is former and still unofficially used name for the men's ISSF 50 meter pistol competition held at the Olympics. "Free" pistol is used to distinguish between other pistol disciplines (air, rapid fire, standard, sport, military/centre-fire). The competition was first held at the inaugural 1896 Olympics (at 30 metres) and then held at 50 metres (or yards, in 1908) each time that shooting was on the programme (that is, excluding 1904) until 1920. It was dropped from the programme for amateurism reasons from 1924 to 1932, but returned in 1936. It was held again at every Games from then until 2016; the event, which had no women's equivalent, was dropped after 2016 to make room for a mixed team air pistol event as the sport moved toward gender equality. In all, the event was held 24 times. The event was open to women from 1968 to 1980, although very few women participated these years.

ISSF 50 meter pistol at the Olympic Games
Alfred Lane, 1912 Olympic pistol champion
Overview
Sport	Shooting
Gender	Men
Years held	Men: 1896, 1900, 1908–1920, 1936–2016
Reigning champion
Men	Jin Jong-oh (KOR)

A team event was held four times from 1904 to 1920.

Medals

Men

Games	Gold	Silver	Bronze
1896 Athens	Sumner Paine  United States	Holger Nielsen  Denmark	Ioannis Frangoudis  Greece
1900 Paris	Karl Röderer  Switzerland	Achille Paroche  France	Konrad Stäheli  Switzerland
1904 St. Louis	Not held
1908 London	Paul Van Asbroeck  Belgium	Réginald Storms  Belgium	James Gorman  United States
1912 Stockholm	Alfred Lane  United States	Peter Dolfen  United States	Charles Stewart  Great Britain
1920 Antwerp	Karl Frederick  United States	Afrânio da Costa  Brazil	Alfred Lane  United States
1924 Paris	Not held
1928 Amsterdam	Not held
1932 Los Angeles	Not held
1936 Berlin	Torsten Ullman  Sweden	Erich Krempel  Germany	Charles des Jammonières  France
1948 London	Edwin Vásquez  Peru	Rudolf Schnyder  Switzerland	Torsten Ullman  Sweden
1952 Helsinki	Huelet Benner  United States	Ángel León  Spain	Ambrus Balogh  Hungary
1956 Melbourne	Pentti Linnosvuo  Finland	Makhmud Umarov  Soviet Union	Offutt Pinion  United States
1960 Rome	Aleksey Gushchin  Soviet Union	Makhmud Umarov  Soviet Union	Yoshihisa Yoshikawa  Japan
1964 Tokyo	Väinö Markkanen  Finland	Franklin Green  United States	Yoshihisa Yoshikawa  Japan
1968 Mexico City (mixed)	Grigory Kosykh  Soviet Union	Heinz Mertel  West Germany	Harald Vollmar  East Germany
1972 Munich (mixed)	Ragnar Skanåker  Sweden	Daniel Iuga  Romania	Rudolf Dollinger  Austria
1976 Montreal (mixed)	Uwe Potteck  East Germany	Harald Vollmar  East Germany	Rudolf Dollinger  Austria
1980 Moscow (mixed)	Aleksandr Melentyev  Soviet Union	Harald Vollmar  East Germany	Lyubcho Dyakov  Bulgaria
1984 Los Angeles	Xu Haifeng  China	Ragnar Skanåker  Sweden	Wang Yifu  China
1988 Seoul	Sorin Babii  Romania	Ragnar Skanåker  Sweden	Igor Basinski  Soviet Union
1992 Barcelona	Kanstantsin Lukashyk  Unified Team	Wang Yifu  China	Ragnar Skanåker  Sweden
1996 Atlanta	Boris Kokorev  Russia	Igor Basinski  Belarus	Roberto Di Donna  Italy
2000 Sydney	Tanyu Kiryakov  Bulgaria	Igor Basinski  Belarus	Martin Tenk  Czech Republic
2004 Athens	Mikhail Nestruyev  Russia	Jin Jong-oh  South Korea	Kim Jong-su  North Korea
2008 Beijing	Jin Jong-oh  South Korea	Tan Zongliang  China	Vladimir Isakov  Russia
2012 London	Jin Jong-Oh  South Korea	Choi Young-Rae  South Korea	Wang Zhiwei  China
2016 Rio de Janeiro	Jin Jong-oh  South Korea	Hoàng Xuân Vinh  Vietnam	Kim Song-guk  North Korea

Multiple medalists

Rank	Gymnast	Nation	Olympics	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	Jin Jong-oh	South Korea (KOR)	2004–2016	3	1	0	4
2	Ragnar Skanåker	Sweden (SWE)	1972, 1984–1992	1	2	1	4
3	Alfred Lane	United States (USA)	1912–1920	1	0	1	2
	Torsten Ullman	Sweden (SWE)	1936–1948	1	0	1	2
5	Harald Vollmar	East Germany (GDR)	1968, 1976–1980	0	2	1	3
	Igor Basinski	Soviet Union (URS)  Belarus (BLR)	1988, 1996–2000	0	2	1	3
7	Makhmud Umarov	Soviet Union (URS)	1956–1960	0	2	0	2
8	Wang Yifu	China (CHN)	1988–1992	0	1	1	2
9	Yoshihisa Yoshikawa	Japan (JPN)	1960–1964	0	0	2	2
	Rudolf Dollinger	Austria (AUT)	1972–1976	0	0	2	2

Medalists by nation

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	United States (USA)	4	2	3	9
2	Soviet Union (URS)	3	2	1	6
3	South Korea (KOR)	3	2	0	5
4	Sweden (SWE)	2	2	2	6
5	Russia (RUS)	2	0	1	3
6	Finland (FIN)	2	0	0	2
7	China (CHN)	1	2	2	5
8	East Germany (GDR)	1	2	1	4
9	Switzerland (SUI)	1	1	1	3
10	Belgium (BEL)	1	1	0	2
	Romania (ROU)	1	1	0	2
12	Bulgaria (BUL)	1	0	1	2
13	Peru (PER)	1	0	0	1
	Unified Team (EUN)	1	0	0	1
15	Belarus (BLR)	0	2	0	2
16	France (FRA)	0	1	1	2
17	Brazil (BRA)	0	1	0	1
	Denmark (DEN)	0	1	0	1
	Germany (GER)	0	1	0	1
	West Germany (FRG)	0	1	0	1
	Spain (ESP)	0	1	0	1
	Vietnam (VIE)	0	1	0	1
23	Austria (AUT)	0	0	2	2
	Japan (JPN)	0	0	2	2
	North Korea (PRK)	0	0	2	2
26	Czech Republic (CZE)	0	0	1	1
	Great Britain (GBR)	0	0	1	1
	Greece (GRE)	0	0	1	1
	Hungary (HUN)	0	0	1	1
	Italy (ITA)	0	0	1	1

Team pistol

Men

Games	Gold	Silver	Bronze
1900 Paris	Friedrich Lüthi, Paul Probst, Louis Richardet, Karl Röderer, Konrad Stäheli  Switzerland	Louis Duffoy, Maurice Lecoq, Léon Moreaux, Achille Paroche, Jules Trinité  France	Solko van den Bergh, Antonius Bouwens, Dirk Boest Gips, Henrik Sillem, Anthony Sweijs  Netherlands
1908 London	Charles Axtell, Irving Calkins, John Dietz, James Gorman  United States	René Englebert, Charles Paumier du Verger, Réginald Storms, Paul Van Asbroeck  Belgium	Geoffrey Coles, William Ellicott, Henry Lynch-Staunton, Jesse Wallingford  Great Britain
1912 Stockholm	John Dietz, Peter Dolfen, Alfred Lane, Henry Sears  United States	Erik Boström, Eric Carlberg, Vilhelm Carlberg, Georg de Laval  Sweden	Hugh Durant, Albert Kempster, Horatio Poulter, Charles Stewart  Great Britain
1920 Antwerp	Raymond Bracken, Karl Frederick, Michael Kelly, Alfred Lane, James H. Snook  United States	Anders Andersson, Gunnar Gabrielsson, Sigvard Hultcrantz, Anders Johnson, Casimir Reuterskiöld  Sweden	Dario Barbosa, Afrânio da Costa, Guilherme Paraense, Fernando Soledade, Sebastião Wolf  Brazil

Multiple medalists

Rank	Gymnast	Nation	Olympics	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	John Dietz	United States (USA)	1908–1912	2	0	0	2
	Alfred Lane	United States (USA)	1912–1920	2	0	0	2

Medalists by nation

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	United States (USA)	3	0	0	3
2	Switzerland (SUI)	1	0	0	1
3	Sweden (SWE)	0	2	0	2
4	Belgium (BEL)	0	1	0	1
	France (FRA)	0	1	0	1
6	Great Britain (GBR)	0	0	2	2
7	Brazil (BRA)	0	0	1	1
	Netherlands (NED)	0	0	1	1