Gerry Ouellette

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Few soldiers and athletes are able to raise the bars and achieve true excellence: Gerald Ouellette was one such military sportsman. Ouellette joined the Canadian Forces in 1955 and served as a Captain until he was tragically killed in a light aircraft crash twenty years later.

As a young cadet student, Ouellette's talents shone through and he was encouraged to take up shooting by his teacher and cadet instructor, Major Wynn Jennings. As a young member of the Canadian Reserve Army, Ouellette was disciplined to hone his shooting skills to the very highest standards. An impressive list of sporting achievements and Cadet shooting titles accompanied his young career: the 1951 Junior and Cadet Service Rifle Championships of Canada, the Ontario Provincial Services Rifle competition, the 1955 Canadian and Provincial .22 calibre Championship, the 1955 Ohio State Championships Indoor Smallbore competition. Indeed, so excellent was the young Ouellette he was awarded the Lieutenant-Governors Medal in 1952, awarded only to people who 'go above and beyond'.

Yet, Ouellette had not achieved anywhere near the highest levels that he knew he could achieve. In 1956 at the Melbourne Olympic Games, the world's greatest sporting stage, the young and still inexperienced Ouellette shocked the sporting world by storming to a victory of remarkable excellence. Sharing a rifle with his team-mate, Gil Boa who went on to take the bronze medal, Ouellette scored an unprecedented and perfect mark of 600 to win the gold medal.

Unfortunately, the Australian Olympic Committee, when converting the shooting range to the European metric standard had taken 1.5 metres off the required distance and Ouelllette's score was not recognized as the official world-record that it would have been had the organizers been more accurate. In recognition of such high standards, the Dominican Republic placed Ouellette on one of their stamps. A feat, no other Canadian sportsman or woman has ever achieved.

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