Jan Foss (1 December 1938 - 12 June 2021) was a Norwegian

sport shooter Shooting sports is a group of competitive and recreational sporting activities involving proficiency tests of accuracy, precision and speed in shooting — the art of using ranged weapons, mainly small arms (firearms and airguns, in forms such ...

from

Oslo Oslo ( or ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of 1,064,235 in 2022 ...

who became the second

world champion A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game ...

practical shooting Practical shooting, also known as dynamic shooting or action shooting, is a set of shooting sports in which the competitors try to unite the three principles of precision, power, and speed, by using a firearm of a certain minimum power factor to ...

in 1976 during the IPSC Handgun World Shoot II in

Salzburg Salzburg is the List of cities and towns in Austria, fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020 its population was 156,852. The city lies on the Salzach, Salzach River, near the border with Germany and at the foot of the Austrian Alps, Alps moun ...

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

. The favourite ahead of the championship was reigning world champion

Ray Chapman Raymond Johnson Chapman (January 15, 1891 – August 17, 1920) was an American baseball player. He spent his entire career as a shortstop for the Cleveland Indians of the American League. Chapman was hit in the head by a pitch thrown by pitch ...

from USA, who competed with a 1911-pistol in

.45 ACP The .45 ACP ( Automatic Colt Pistol), also known as .45 Auto, .45 Automatic, or 11.43×23mm is a rimless straight-walled handgun cartridge designed by John Moses Browning in 1904, for use in his prototype Colt semi-automatic pistol. After su ...

. Foss took the title with a

SIG P210 The SIG P210 ( Swiss Army designation Pistole 49, the civilian model was known as SP47/8 prior to 1957) is a locked breech self loading, semi-automatic pistol designed and manufactured in Neuhausen am Rheinfall (Canton of Schaffhausen, Switzer ...

in 9×19 mm with minor scoring, while Chapman and most of the other competitors shot the .45" caliber with major scoring which was considered an advantage due to the scoring system. The competition was described as being versatile,News article in the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten, 1976 August 8 and Foss shot 379 points which was enough to take the title with a small margin of only four points ahead of Ray Chapman in second place with 375 points (98.94%). Foss had been unknown before the world championship, and did not compete internationally afterwards. He continued to compete locally throughout his career with pistol, rifle and shotgun where he took several medals.

References

Front Sight Magazine November/ December 2006, page 58 of 84
{{DEFAULTSORT:Foss, Jan Norwegian male sport shooters IPSC World Shoot Champions Sport shooters from Oslo

See also

References