Olympic Trap, Trench, or Bunker Trap (US) is one of the disciplines that form part of the target shooting programme at the Olympic Games. OTR was first shot during the Olympics of 1900 in Paris albeit in a different format. Olympic Trap as it is shot today was first introduced during the Olympic games of 1952 in Helsinki. Olympic Trap is regarded by many as the ‘formula one’ of Trap Shooting and the most difficult of the 3 Olympic clay target disciplines because unlike Olympic Skeet and Double Trap, the shooter does not know what the target trajectory will be. High levels of concentration and self discipline as well as excellent marksmanship skills are required to achieve a winning performance in Olympic Trap.
Olympic Trap Range
An Olympic Trap range comprises a trench in front of the shooting stands that conceals 15 traps arranged in 5 groups of 3. Six shooters will take turns to shoot at a target each, before moving in a clockwise direction to the next stand in the line. Targets for each shooter are thrown immediately upon the shooters call of "Pull" and are randomly selected from any one of the 3 traps directly in front of the shooters stand. Olympic trap targets are set to travel 75+/- one metre at varying elevations and with a maximum horizontal angle of 45 degrees either side of the centre line. On release, the target is set to travel a distance of approximately 76 meters, which means that it leaves the trench at quite a pace!
Competition Format
Competitors are randomly placed into numbered 6 man squads prior to the competition and these details along with range reporting timings are published at the venue the evening before the competition. Each squad will shoot 5 qualifying rounds of 25 targets, therefore total score is ex 125. Scoring is done on the basis of 1 point per target hit, regardless of whether this is achieved with the first or second shot. The top 6 competitors in each competition class i.e. Senior Mens, Women, and Juniors are then put forward for their respective class finals which will consist of 25 targets. During the final, shooters have only one shot at the target and therefore must load only one cartridge.
Jay Pope (site owner) shooting at the Southern Counties Olympic Trap Grand Prix 2009.