Free Rifle, Three Positions, 300 metres, Team, 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 from prone, kneeling, and standing positions from 300 metres for a possible individual 1,200 points, and team possible score of 6,000 points. Each team had five shooters with all scores to count towards the team total. A total of six teams, and 30 shooters competed. The individual event was held concurrently with the team free rifle.

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).

Switzerland, with gold in 1897 and 1899 and bronze in 1898, and France, with gold in 1898, silver in 1899 and bronze in 1897 had won a medal in each of the three Championships. The only other nations to win medals were Norway (silver 1897), Italy (silver 1898), and Denmark (bronze 1899). Of these five medal-winning teams, only Italy did not send a team to Paris. The reigning World Champions Switzerland retained their title and also collected the Olympic gold thanks to Franz Böckli, Alfred Grütter, Emil Kellenberger, Konrad Stäheli, and Louis Richardet, who was a replacement for Caspar Widmer in Paris. Richardet was a member of the Swiss gold medal-winning team at the inaugural Worlds in 1897.

Three members of the French World Championship-winning team of 1898 took part in Paris; Achille Paroche, Léon Moreaux, and Auguste Cavadini, of whom two, Paroche and Moreaux, were also on the silver medal winning team in 1899. The Denmark bronze medal-winning team from the 1899 Worlds was nearly the same in Paris, with Axel Kristensen replacing J. Johansen.

Switzerland, led by the individual champion Emil Kellenberger, won the gold medal by over 100 points but it was close from second through fourth place with Norway just ahead of France by 12 points, and Denmark a further 13 points behind in fourth. The winning score of 4399 points was worse than the scores of 1898 World Champions France (4447 points) and Switzerland’s winning total in 1899 (4528 points).