Free Rifle, Three Positions, 300 metres, Men

The target in this event was 1 metre in diameter with 10 scoring rings, with a black aiming mark of 60 cm in diameter. Competitors shot 40 shots each from prone, kneeling, and standing positions from 300 metres for a possible 1,200 points. The individual event was held concurrently with the free rifle team event. Ties were broken by the most number of hits, and then the most of hits in the black portion of the target, although this is not recorded to allow to be certain of breaking all the tied positions.

For the first and only time, the World Championships were held concurrently with the Olympics and the Olympic Champions also became World Champions. It was the fourth staging of the World Championships, having previously been held in Lyon (France) in 1897, Turin (Italy) 1898 and Loosduinen 1899 which, since 1923 has been a district of Den Haag (Netherlands).

In the three previous championships, the nine medals in this event had been won by nine different shooters, of whom seven were competing in Paris, including the 1898 and 1899 world champions Achille Paroche (France) and Lars Jørgen Madsen (Denmark). Also competing in Paris were Ole Østmo (Norway), the silver medallist from 1897, Léon Moreaux (France) and Konrad Stäheli (Switzerland), the 1898 silver and bronze medallists, and the silver and bronze winners from 1899, Emil Kellenberger and Franz Böckli (both from Switzerland).

However, it was the 1899 World Championships silver medallist Kellenberger who won the gold medal with the best performance in the kneeling phase, and tied with second-placed Anders Peter Nielsen, followed by steady performances in the prone and standing elements. Nielsen lost the gold medal because of his weaker effort standing. The results in Paris were relatively poor. Kellenberger’s final score of 930 was the lowest ever to win a gold medal in this event at the World Championships (1897 cannot be compared) and would have only brought him just a bronze in 1898 and 1899. Only the results at the 1908 Olympics eventually produced poorer scores.