Achille PAROCHE

A French army captain, Achille Paroche was a prolific rifle shooter, but also occasionally successful with a hand weapon. Not counting his exploits at the Paris Olympics (which doubled as World Championships), he won the stunning total of 27 World Championship medals. His most dominant performance was at the 1898 edition in Torino, where he won the individual and team free rifle, as well as the free rifle standing competition, while adding silvers in the prone and kneeling events. All his other titles came in the free rifle prone competition, which he won in 1900 (thus making him Olympic champion as well), 1910 and 1913. His best pistol results came in 1900 (silver individually and with the team) and 1901 (another team silver). Between 1898 and 1914, Paroche only twice failed to win a medal with the French free rifle team; in 1903 no Frenchmen travelled to Argentina, and in 1912 he was left off the squad. Paroche's last international medal came in 1921, when he won silver in the army rifle standing competition. A year earlier he had won his fifth Olympic medal, 20 years after his first four, in the military rifle team event.