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Michael Diamond put shooting on the Australian sporting map in Atlanta in 1996 when he won a gold medal in the men's trap.

It was Australia's first gold medal in the sport in 96 years (more about that later), but was quickly followed by another when Russell Mark won gold in the double trap.

Eight years on, both are in Australia's team for Beijing, Diamond as a double gold medallist after backing up to win a second gold in Sydney and Mark with a silver to his name at his home Olympics.

They will be hoping to lead an Australian team eager to continuea run of success that has netted at least one gold per Games since Diamond's first in Atlanta made the then unemployed Goulburn man a household name.

Prior to Diamond's efforts in 1996, Australia's only previous shooting victory was achieved by Donald Mackintosh in the live pigeon shoot at the Paris Games of 1900.

The fact that he was a gold medal winner was lost on Mackintosh himself. In 1900, the Olympics were attached to the Paris Exhibition, and Mackintosh thought he was competing in a competition as part of the exhibition.

For a variety of reasons, even as late as 1992, he was not recognised as an Olympic champion.

But after much work by a series of historians, it was confirmed that Mackintosh had won the equivalent of both gold and bronze medals in shooting events in Paris.

It may be unseemly by today's standards, but Mackintosh won the live pigeon shoot with 22 successive kills.

History

Marksmanship, whether with a rock, a spear, a bow and arrow or a gun, has long been a human pursuit.

Not only was target practice an important part of preparations for warfare, but it also developed into a sport.

True shooting began with the development of the musket, a forerunner of today's rifle.

By the 16th century, shooting matches and competitions were gaining in popularity.

In the United States, competitions were held which involved competitors taking a single shot at elaborate wooden targets.

So called "turkey shoots" followed, with competitors firing from around 200 metres away.

As the sophistication of firearms improved, so too did the viability of target shooting and by the mid 19th century match shooting events were drawing big crowds.

One event in Glendale Park New York held in the 1880s attracted 600 shooters and an amazing 30,000 spectators.

The efforts of wild west legends WF "Buffalo Bill" Cody and Annie Oakley did much for the sport's popularity.

Trap shooting of live pigeons began in the United States around 1825, and artificial targets - first glass balls then clay targets - were introduced soon afterwards.

Given that the founder of the modern Olympics, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, was a French pistol champion, it is no surprise that shooting was on the program for the first Games in 1896.

Since then, the sport has been left out of the Games only twice: in 1904 in St Louis and in 1928 in Amsterdam.

In fact, it is one of only nine sports which has survived from the original Olympic program in Athens.

But while shooting has been close to ever-present at Olympic level, the events contested have changed greatly.

Team events were popular in the first half of the 20th century, but were phased out by the 1948 Games.

Just two events were contested at the 1932 Games in Los Angeles, but 12 years earlier the Antwerp Games showcased 21 shooting events.

Women were allowed to compete for the first time in 1972, competing against men until 1980.

Three events for women only were introduced in Los Angeles in 1984 and that number has climbed to seven for Sydney.

Even now the program is changing. Fifteen rifle, pistol, running target and shotgun events were contested in Atlanta in 1996. For Sydney two new events have been added, the trap for women and the skeet for women.