As it’s name indicates, this is one of the disciplines which forms part of the shooting programme at the Olympic Games.
A trench built beneath ground level in front of the shooting stands conceals 15 traps arranged in 5 groups of 3. Shooters 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 their call and are selected by a shooting scheme that ensures all competitors receive exactly the same target selection, but in a unpredictable randomised order, from any one of the three traps directly in front of them.
Olympic Trap targets are set to travel 76 metres at varying elevations and with a maximum horizontal angle of 45 degrees either side of the centre line.
Scoring is done of the basis of 1 point per target hit, regardless of whether this is achieved with the first or second barrel.
A simpler and cheaper to install variation of this discipline is known as Universal Trench (UT) where only five traps are used, the target distance can vary between 60 and 76 metres with a maximum angle of 45 degrees either side of the centre line.
Another variation is Automatic Ball Trap (ABT) where only one trap is used and target variation is obtained by the continuous oscillation of the trap in both horizontal and vertical directions in order to give the same spread of targets as in Olympic Trap. The target distance is a maximum of 70 metres with a maximum angle of 32.5 degrees either side of the centre line.
