Name Malcolm Cooper | Role Olympic athlete | |
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Malcolm Cooper Range, Bisley
Malcolm Douglas Cooper, MBE, (20 December 1947 – 9 June 2001) was a British sport shooter and founder of Accuracy International. He was the first shooter to win two consecutive gold medals in the Olympic 50 metre rifle three positions event, a feat which stood unrivalled for 28 years until the 2016 Rio Olympics, when Italian shooter Niccolò Campriani matched the record by successfully defending his three position title from the 2012 London Olympics.
Cooper was born in 1947 in Camberley and learned to shoot small bore rifles whilst attending Westlake Boys High School in New Zealand, where his father was stationed with the Royal Navy: he subsequently attended the Royal Hospital School. He started shooting competitively in 1970. In 1978 he established his own rifle making company Accuracy International. He won gold medals at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles and at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul (both in the three positions event). In 1986 he was also world champion in 300 m Standard Rifle, a non-Olympic rifle discipline in which he claimed several European and World titles, as well as holding the World record for a period.
Cooper died in June 2001 after an eight-month battle with cancer. He died at his home in Eastergate, West Sussex.