Trap, Men

Contested for the 23rd time at the Olympics, trap was the most traditional shooting event held in Tokyo. After making all the shooting events gender equal for the Tokyo Games, this event saw the smallest field since 1920 with only 29 competitors. The field included all three medallists from the 2018 World Championships, with Alberto Fernández (gold) and Erik Varga (silver) both competing in their fourth Olympics, and Abdulrahman Al-Faihan (bronze). Of the two World Shotgun Championships held since the last Olympics, only Jiří Lipták (bronze in 2017), Matthew Coward-Holley (gold in 2019) and Mauro De Filippis (silver in 2019) competed. Josip Glasnović was the only medallist from Rio to compete in Tokyo and he was also the last person to score a perfect 125 in the qualification round during the World Cup at Al-Ain back in April 2019. The world record for final rounds just before the Games was 48 hits and was secured by Fernández (twice), Yang Kun-Pi and Naser Al-Meqlad, but the latter was not present in Tokyo.

The qualification round was won by Lipták, who only missed one target to score 124. Four shooters scored 123 and another six scored 122. As a result, positions two to five saw a shoot-off and the last place in the final was also decided between six shooters in a shoot-off. This place was taken by Jorge Martín Orozco, who finished fourth in the final. Coward-Holley won bronze for Great Britain to give them their first shooting medal of the Games and followed his compatriot Ed Ling, who also won bronze in Rio. Lipták and David Kostelecký, both from the Czech Republic, fought for gold in a shoot-off after both broke 43 of 50 targets. Kostelecký, who won Olympic gold back in 2008, missed the seventh target and placed second. The one-two finish of Lipták and Kostelecký was the first for a nation in this event since Mark Arie, Frank Troeh and Frank Wright made a clean sweep for the United States 101 years ago, at the 1920 Olympics.