Lones Wigger
American sports shooter
Died when: 80 years 111 days (963 months)Star Sign: Virgo
Lones Wesley Wigger Jr. (August 25, 1937, Great Falls, Montana – December 14, 2017, Colorado Springs, Colorado) was an American sports shooter.Wigger was a member of the United States Olympic team on three occasions, winning two Olympic Gold Medals.
He also served in the U.S.Army as a lieutenant colonel.Wigger is often regarded as having been the greatest competitive rifle shooter ever to have taken aim for the United States.
He made every Olympic Shooting Team between 1968 and 1980, he held or co-held 27 world records – 14 team and 13 individual.He won 58 National Championships of almost every variety beginning in 1963.
He was a member of 16 major U.S. international teams, starting with the 1963 Pan-American Games and his record includes: 22 World Championships (two individual, 20 team); seven Pan-American titles; 18 victories in the Championship of the Americas meet; 16 victories in the Council Internationale Sport du Militaire meet; and in those four meets, plus the Olympics, he won 108 medals.
Wigger was a member of the Olympic shooting team in 1964, 1968, 1972 and 1980.The 1964 effort resulted in a gold medal.He won the gold for the three position small-bore rifle with a score of 1164, and also won a silver medal for small-bore rifle, prone position with a score of 597.
He ran the 23rd Infantry Division Sniper School in Vietnam in 1971, and won the gold medal for free rifle, 3 position, with a score of 1155 in 1972.
Wigger was on the United States Army Marksmanship Unit, and competed in international matches representing the United States for 20 years.
He was inducted into the Olympic Hall of Fame in June 2008.
