It's split into three different disciplines; shotgun, rifle and pistol.

Shotgun events involve competitors firing at moving targets, called clay pigeons, while rifle and pistol see shooters aiming at targets between 10m and 50m away.

In the six shotgun events the clay pigeons are fired into the air when the shooter asks for them, and the one who hits the most is the winner. There are three different ways for the clay pigeons to be released in the shotgun events.

• In trap, there are three places targets are launched from. The shooter doesn't know where the targets will come from, and has two shots to hit each one.
• In double trap, two targets are fired at once and the shooters can only fire one shot at each of them.
• In skeet, targets are fired from lots of different locations, sometimes in pairs sometimes one at a time. Shooters have one shot to hit each.

In the rifle events shooters hope to hit tiny bullseyes in targets a long way from them.

The winner is the shooter with the most points, and sometimes the difference between winners and losers is very small indeed, perhaps a single point or two.

Who are the British hopes for Athens?
Richard Faulds and Ian Peel won gold and silver medals respectively at the Sydney Games so will be hopeful of doing so again.

Who are the big names?
Skeet shooter Ennio Falco is one man tipped for gold having won in 1996, even though he failed to reach the final in 2000.

But since then he's been European champion three times and has won the World Cup.