2012 Olympics and sport shooting

90 per cent of the 133 Sport Shooting athletes that are in London chose to use Italian firearms, and the 80 per cent of them did the same with ammunition. Italian firearms  and ammunition are those mostly preferred by sport shooting athletes and champions from all over the world that are participating at the London 2012 Olympics, and it is with those products that almost all of the shooting medals in the Olympic history were won.

The Italian Sporting shooting firearms and London 2012

At the 2012 Olympics Games in London, among the 133 athletes of the Sport Shooting, coming from 59 countries worldwide, 90 percent of them chose to use guns made in Italy, while the 80 percent of them chose the Italian ammunition. In particular, the athletes of Trap and Double Trap have all chosen the Italian products (athletes of Shooting are divided into Trap - 56, including 34 men and 22 women, Double Trap - 24 only men, Skeet - 53, including 36 men and 17 women), as well as all the Italian national team, of course.

Arms and the history of Italian sports Olympic medals

The excellence of made in Italy guns is historically linked to all the medals that were won by the Italian team in the sport shooting discipline. Here are some figures of the victories over the past years:

  • Beijing Olympics 2008: 15 medals out of 15 were won with Italian guns from athletes from all over the world. For ammunition the score is 10 out of 15
  • Athens Olympics 2004: 18 medals out of 18 were won with Italian guns used by athletes of 13 different nationalities, while for ammunition it is 14 medals out of 18
  • Sydney Olympics 2000: 16 medals out of 18 were won using Italian guns
  • Atlanta Olympics 1996: 11 medals out of 12 were won with Italian guns

Italian companies that are  FITAV suppliers

Guns

  • Perazzi
  • Beretta
  • Rizzini

Ammunition

  • Fiocchi
  • Baschieri & Pellagri
  • Cheddite
  • Gruppo Nobel Sport Italia

Calendar of finals and names of the Azzurri of the shooting disciplines in London

July 29     - Womenʼs Skeet Final (Chiara Cainero)

July 31     - Men’s Skeet Final (Ennio Falco and Luigi Agostino Lodde)

August 2  - Double Trap Final (Daniele Di Spigno and Francesco D'Aniello)

August 4  - Women’s Final Trap (Jessica Rossi)

August 6  - Men’s Final Trap (Massimo Fabbrizi and Giovanni Pellielo)

“In Shooting those willing to win use Italian guns and ammunition – said Nicola Perrotti, President of ANPAM (National Association of Firearms and Ammunition Manufacturers for Sports and Civil uses, an association member of the Italian Confindustria). In this sense one could say that, in Shooting, Italy has already won even before starting to compete. We are obviously proud – Perrotti continues - of what has been achieved in the previous Olympics, but we hope to repeat the en plein of medals, as we did in Beijing and Athens, with a focus on the Italian athletes that we support through the Federation”.

Some figures of Italian sport shooting firearms sector  

(Source: study conducted in 2011 by the University of Urbino, Faculty of Economics)

Italy is the leading European manufacturer of sport shooting  and hunting firearms (covering about 60% of the total EU Community supply) and is the most important exporting country of sporting and commercial firearms and ammunition worldwide: the exports represent in fact 90% production, particularly in the U.S. (about 45%). Only few industries can boast of an import-export business scale with these values.

The sector in the strict sense (manufacturers and suppliers) consists of: 2,264 companies, 11,358 employees and a value of production (turnover) of € 486,338,624.

The sector consists of small and medium sized enterprises (if we exclude a couple of medium-big sized companies for manufacturing firearms and one manufacturing ammunition), very often family owned. It is an industry that relies on a production chain combining excellence and tradition of handicraft and art (think of the engravers) and hi-tech structures.

“Our productions are based on a high level of specialization – says Nicola Perrotti, President of Anpam – which means a stable workforce with a all-Italian generator hub: in fact our industry imports only few raw materials, while it exports 90% of what it produces. We are a strong sector, able to face our foreign competitors head-on as only few others can do in Italy”.