Shooting at the 1964 Summer Olympics – Men's trap

This was the ninth appearance of the men's ISSF Olympic trap event. The event was held at every Summer Olympics from 1896 to 1924 (except 1904, when no shooting events were held) and from 1952 to 2016; it was open to women from 1968 to 1996.[2]

Eight of the top 11 (including a tie for 10th) shooters from the 1960 Games returned, including all three medalists: gold medalist Ion Dumitrescu of Romania, silver medalist Galliano Rossini of Italy, bronze medalist Sergei Kalinin of the Soviet Union, sixth-place finisher Joe Wheater of Great Britain, seventh-place finisher Adam Smelczyński of Poland, eighth-place finishers Claude Foussier of France and Karni Singh of India, and tenth-place finisher Laszlo Szapáry of Austria. Rossini was also a former champion (gold in 1956) and was competing in the event for the fourth time. Smelczyński had been the silver medalist to Rossini in 1956. In the two World Championships since 1960, Dumitrescu had taken a bronze (1961) and Singh had taken silver (1962). The 1961 World Champion, Ennio Mattarelli, joined Rossini for a formidable Italian pair.[1]

Israel, Pakistan, and Rhodesia each made their debut in the event. Great Britain made its ninth appearance, the only nation to have competed at each edition of the event to that point.

The competition used the 200-target format introduced with the return of trap to the Olympics in 1952. The 1964 event dropped the two-round competition that had been used in 1960; only a single round of shooting was done, with all shooters facing 200 targets. Shooting was done in 8 series of 25 targets.[3][1]

Prior to this competition, the existing world and Olympic records were as follows.

World record
Olympic record	Galliano Rossini (ITA)	195	Melbourne, Australia	29 November – 1 December 1956

Ennio Mattarelli of Italy set a new Olympic record at 198.