This August, Mohammed Ramah will become the first Moroccan to compete in the men’s Olympic shooting tournament since Rome’s 1960 Games. Ramah qualified to the Rio 2016 Olympics by fulfilling the minimum qualification score for the men’s double-trap category, which allowed him to take the shooting quota spot reserved for Morocco.
The International Shooting Sport Federation granted Ramah the quota place based on his achievements in the regional and international competitions over the past two years, through which he collected the qualifying points. He excelled in the 2015 African Championship, where he won gold at the double-trap team event and silver at the individual double-trap, along with two bronze medals for the skeet and trap team events.
He won another double-trap gold at the 2014 Arab Shooting Championship that was held in Qatar. Additionally, Ramah ranked seventh place in the 2015 Azerbaijan Shotgun World Cup and 13th in the 2014 World Championship.
The 2015 and 2016 Moroccan National Champion holds the national trap and double-trap records, plus the individual and team double-trap African records. He achieved the latter with his compatriots Ennaji El-Aissi and Mohamed Bensaleh.
Morocco sent four shooters to its first Olympic Games in Rome 1960. It did not return to the Olympic shooting scene until 2012, when Yasmina Mesfioui took part in the women’s trap shooting event in London and placed 21st. Neither competition yielded any shooting medals, as the country has only found Olympic success in athletics and boxing. Athletics has brought home the majority of Morocco's honors, while boxers have snagged three of its 22 medals.
Ramah will re-establish Morocco’s shooting presence at the Olympics this summer as the nation’s only qualified shooter so far. He is heading to Rio alongside more than 30 Moroccans who have earned berths at the athletics, boxing, canoeing, cycling, equestrian, fencing, judo, weightlifting, taekwondo and wrestling Olympic 2016 competitions.