Gerald Raymond OUELLETTE

Gerry Ouellette took up shooting as a high school student and honed his skills as a member of the Canadian Reserve Army. His victory in the 50 metre rifle, prone at the 1956 Summer Olympics was the greatest of his successes in the sport: sharing a rifle with teammate Gil Boa (who went on to win the bronze medal), he scored a perfect 600, which would have been a world record if the course had not been 1.5 metres short of the required 50. He also finished 11th in the 300 metre rifle, three positions and 21st in the 50 metre rifle, three positions. He continued to compete for several years after the Games and won the national sporting rifle championship in 1959. He was then sent to that year’s Pan American Games, where he brought home four medals: gold in the 300 m rifle, three positions, silver in the 50 m rifle, three positions and bronze in the 50 m rifle, kneeling and standing.

Ouellette made a brief comeback in the late 1960s, capturing silver in the 50 m rifle, three positions at the 1967 Pan American Games. He was also selected to represent Canada at the 1968 Summer Olympics, where he was sixth in the 50 m rifle, three positions and twentieth in the 50 m rifle, prone. A tool designer at Ford by career, he died at the age of 40 after crashing an airplane that he had been flying 25 miles east of his hometown of Windsor, Ontario. He has been inducted into the Canadian Olympic (1957), Canada’s Sports (1957), and the Canadian Forces Sports (1971) Halls of Fame and a Canadian postage stamp was released in his honor in 1996.