Dirk Boest Gips (30 July 1864 – 11 November 1920) was a Dutch
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 a ...
who competed in the early 20th century in
pistol
A pistol is a handgun, more specifically one with the chamber integral to its gun barrel, though in common usage the two terms are often used interchangeably. The English word was introduced in , when early handguns were produced in Europe, an ...
shooting. He participated in
Shooting at the 1900 Summer Olympics
At the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris, many shooting events were featured within the concurrent 1900 Exposition Universelle, but only eight events currently are considered as "Olympic" by IOC. Before July 2021 the International Olympic Committee ...
in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
and won a
bronze medal
A bronze medal in sports and other similar areas involving competition is a medal made of bronze awarded to the third-place finisher of contests or competitions such as the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, etc. The outright winner receive ...
with the Dutch pistol team, scoring the most points for his team.
He was born in
Dordrecht
Dordrecht (), historically known in English as Dordt (still colloquially used in Dutch, ) or Dort, is a city and municipality in the Western Netherlands, located in the province of South Holland. It is the province's fifth-largest city after R ...
and died in
The Hague
The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...
.
For a long time his real name wasn't known. The official protocol listed him as van Haan and almost all the sources referenced him as Gerardus van Haan or Gerardus van Loon. For about 40 years, Dutch Olympic historian
Anthony Bijkerk
Anthony or Antony is a masculine given name, derived from the ''Antonii'', a ''gens'' ( Roman family name) to which Mark Antony (''Marcus Antonius'') belonged. According to Plutarch, the Antonii gens were Heracleidae, being descendants of Anton, ...
had searched the name of the 'missing shooter' (as he himself named van Haan) until in the January 2000 he published an article in the ''
Journal of Olympic History
The International Society of Olympic Historians (ISOH) is a non-profit organization founded in 1991 with the purpose of promoting and studying the Olympic Movement and the Olympic Games. The majority of recent books on the Olympic Games have been ...
''
with evidence that the 'missing shooter' was Dirk Boest Gips.
Notes
External links
*
profile
1864 births
1920 deaths
Dutch male sport shooters
Olympic bronze medalists for the Netherlands
Olympic shooters of the Netherlands
Shooters at the 1900 Summer Olympics
Sportspeople from Dordrecht
Olympic medalists in shooting
Medalists at the 1900 Summer Olympics
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