Shooting at the 2004 Summer Olympics – Men's 25 metre rapid fire pistol

Sports shooting at the Olympics

The men's ISSF 25 meter rapid fire pistol competition at the 2004 Summer Olympics was held on 21 August at the Markopoulo Olympic Shooting Centre near Athens, Greece. This was the last Olympic competition before the major rule changes that took place on 1 January 2005, and which lowered the results of the event. There were 17 competitors from 14 nations. Russia's Sergei Polyakov took the silver with 692.7, while he enjoyed his countryman and defending Olympic champion Sergei Alifirenko (692.3) rounding out the podium with a bronze in a remarkable 2–3 finish. Earlier in the prelims, the top three were all tied for the first seed at 592 points. Schumann's third win was Germany's fourth victory in the event (Cornelius van Oyen had won in 1936), most of any nation even not counting East Germany's one win in 1976. Indeed, Schumann personally matched the success of the next best nation, the United States, at three golds and a silver. Alifirenko was the 11th man to win multiple medals in the event.

This was the 22nd appearance of what had been standardised in 1948 as the men's ISSF 25 meter rapid fire pistol event, the only event on the 2020 programme that traces back to 1896. The event has been held at every Summer Olympics except 1904 and 1928 (when no shooting events were held) and 1908; it was nominally open to women from 1968 to 1980, although very few women participated these years. The first five events were quite different, with some level of consistency finally beginning with the 1932 event—which, though it had differences from the 1924 competition, was roughly similar. The 1936 competition followed the 1932 one quite closely. The post World War II event substantially altered the competition once again. The 1984 Games introduced women's only shooting events, including the ISSF 25 meter pistol (though this is more similar to the non Olympic men's ISSF 25 meter center fire pistol than the rapid fire pistol). Five of the eight finalists from 2000 returned: gold medalist Sergei Alifirenko of Russia, bronze medalist Iulian Raicea of Romania, fourth place finisher Emil Milev of Bulgaria, fifth place finisher (and 1992 and 1996 gold and 1988 silver medalist) Ralf Schumann of Germany, and eighth place finisher (and 1988 gold and 1992 silver medalist) Afanasijs Kuzmins of Latvia. Schumann had finished second at the 2002 world championships to his countryman Marco Spangenberg, but was still favored in Athens.

Prior to this competition, the existing world and Olympic records were as follows.

Rank Shooter Nation Qualifying Final Total Series 1 Series 2 Total Ralf Schumann 592 51.4 51.5 102.9 694.9 Sergei Polyakov 592 51.7 49.0 100.7 692.7 Sergei Alifirenko 592 49.9 50.4 100.3 692.3 4 Oleg Tkachov 587 50.6 51.1 101.7 688.7 5 Iulian Raicea 588 49.4 50.2 99.6 687.6 6 Chen Yongqiang 586 46.9 50.9 97.8 683.8