Ragnar Skanåker

Ragnar Skanåker

Ragnar Skanåker at the Swedish Sports Awards 2013
Personal information
Full name Karl Ragnar Skanåker
Nationality  Sweden
Born (1934-06-08) 8 June 1934
Stora Skedvi, Dalarna, Sweden
Residence Munka-Ljungby, Skåne, Sweden
Occupation Businessman
Website http://skanaker.se
Sport
Sport Pistol shooting
Now coaching Asgeir Sigurgeirsson
Updated on 21 February 2014.

Ragnar Skanåker (born 8 June 1934) is a Swedish pistol shooter who was a world-class shooter for an extremely long period. His international breakthrough came in the 1972 Olympics, where he won the 50 m Pistol event. He is mostly associated with this event, the only one in which he has won Olympic medals (four medals distributed over his participation in seven Olympic games, plus the 1982 World Championship), but he also won the 1983 World Championship in 10 m Air Pistol and, surprisingly to most, the 1978 World Championship in 25 m Standard Pistol, with a new world record (that is still as of 2005 a European record). Skanåker's Swedish record in 50 m Pistol is 583, later a world record qualification in 2014 (Jin Jong-Oh, Korea).

He has participated in Olympic games in 1972, 1976, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992 and 1996. He would have participated in Athens 2004 thanks to a special invitation from the International Olympic Committee, but the Swedish Olympic Committee decided not to let Skanåker participate due to insufficient results during the year. An upset Skanåker reported that he would be aiming to participate in 2008 instead, the year he turned 74.

Over the years, Skanåker has worked as a shooting coach in several countries, and designed shooting-specific equipment, sometimes in cooperation with famous weapon manufacturers such as Cesare Morini. Today, he still competes although less often at the international level. He also engages in various debates in Sweden. He also promotes the precision glasses he has designed.

Olympic results

Olympic results[1]
Event 1972 1976 1980 1984 1988 1992 1996
50 metre pistol 1st, gold medalist(s) Gold
567
5th
559
7th
563
2nd, silver medalist(s) Silver
565
2nd, silver medalist(s) Silver
564
3rd, bronze medalist(s) Bronze
566
25th
555
10 metre air pistol - - - - 11th
580
26th
574
26th
575
25 metre rapid fire pistol - - 31st
579
34th
577
- - -

See also

References

  1. "Ragnar Skanåker". Sports Reference. Retrieved 10 February 2016.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 4/23/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.