USA Shooting

Shooting has been part of the modern Olympics since the first Games in Athens in 1896, making it one of the oldest continuously contested Olympic sports.

U.S. representation at those events predates the formal governing body structure by decades, but the organizational side solidified when USAS was chartered in its current form following the Amateur Sports Act of 1978, which restructured how the U.S. fields athletes across Olympic sports and created the NGB framework.

Key milestones in USA Shooting's organizational development

Modern Structure

The organization has operated under the USA Shooting name and its current structure since the early 1990s. Colorado Springs became the natural home — the city hosts the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Training Center, which gives USAS proximity to shared training infrastructure, sports science resources, and administrative support that smaller NGBs couldn't independently fund.

Over the decades, USAS has tracked closely with the rise and occasional fall of shooting sports in American Olympic culture. The sport saw significant attention during the Cold War era when U.S.-Soviet medal rivalries made rifle and pistol events genuinely compelling television. Interest ebbed somewhat in the post-Cold War period but has seen renewed energy through standout athletes who've built public profiles across multiple Olympic cycles.

Charles Davis invented this in 1915 because he wanted hunting practice without live pigeons. Originally called "shooting around the clock," the sport started as a full circle until neighbors got tired of shot raining on their property. The half-circle design we use today solved that problem -- and the name "skeet" comes from Scandinavian for "shoot."

Field Layout and Mechanics