Lars Niklas Bergström (born 18 August 1974) is a Swedish

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 ...

. He has been selected to compete for

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

in running target shooting at the

2004 Summer Olympics The 2004 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad (), and officially branded as Athens 2004 (), were an international multi-sport event held from 13 to 29 August 2004 in Athens, Greece. The Games saw 10,625 athletes ...

, and has won a total of seventeen medals in a major international competition, spanning the

ISSF World Cup The ISSF World Cup was introduced by the International Shooting Sport Federation in 1986 to provide a homogeneous system for qualification to the Olympic shooting competitions. It still is carried out in the Olympic shooting events, with four comp ...

series, the

World Championships 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 ...

, and the

European Championships A European Championship is the top level international sports competition between European athletes or sports teams representing their respective countries or professional sports clubs. In the plural, the European Championships also refers t ...

. Bergstrom trains under head coach Claes Johansson for the national running target team, while shooting at Glaskogens JSK in

Glava Glava AS is a Norwegian industrial company with headquarters in Askim. The name is a portmanteau of the Norwegian word ''glassvatt'', meaning glass wool. Glass wool used as insulation material is the company's main product. Production takes plac ...

Career

Bergström qualified for his first and only Swedish squad in the last Olympic running target competition at the

Athens Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

. He finished behind U.S. shooter and three-time Olympian

Adam Saathoff Adam Christophe Saathoff (born May 25, 1975 in Sierra Vista, Arizona) is an American sport shooter. He has competed for Team USA in running target shooting at three Olympics (1996 to 2004), and has been close to an Olympic final in 2004 (finishin ...

in a runner-up position at the

meet a year earlier in

Suhl Suhl () is a city in Thuringia, Germany, located SW of Erfurt, NE of Würzburg and N of Nuremberg. With its 37,000 inhabitants, it is the smallest of the six urban districts within Thuringia. Together with its northern neighbour-town Zella ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

to secure an Olympic berth for

, and eventually join with fellow marksman Emil Andersson for the national team. Bergstrom marked a steady 286 in the slow-target portion and 285 in the fast-moving round to accumulate a total score of 571 points in the qualifying round, shutting him out of the Olympic final to twelfth in a 19-shooter field. At the 2009 World Running Target Championships in

Vierumäki Vierumäki Ratapiha. Vierumäki is a village located in the Finnish municipality Heinola in the region Päijät-Häme, Finland. There are about 900–1,000 inhabitants. Neighbouring villages are Vuolenkoski in Iitti, Myllyoja in Heinola, Mäke ...

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

, Bergström held off a strenuous challenge from Russia's Igor Kolessov to capture his first ever Worlds medal in a bronze medal duel 20 to 19, finishing third at 391 points.

References

External links

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Athlete Bio – Swedish Olympic Committee
1974 births Living people Swedish male sport shooters Olympic shooters for Sweden Shooters at the 2004 Summer Olympics Sportspeople from Karlstad Running target shooters 20th-century Swedish people 21st-century Swedish people {{Sweden-sportshooting-bio-stub