Petre Cișmigiu

Petre or Petru Cișmigiu, also credited as Cișmigu (Russian: Петре Чишмиджиу; 12 June 1915 – 2006), was a Romanian sports shooter, coach, sports expert, and civil engineer. A native of Bessarabia and graduate of the Bucharest Polytechnic, he worked for a while in designing telephone exchanges, and debuted as a shooter during World War II, with Telefon Club. After obtaining significant results in internal competitions, he qualified for the national shooting team during the first years of the Romanian communist regime. From early 1948, Cișmigiu was an official of the Romanian Shooting Sport Federation (FRT), emerging as a player-coach of the national squad in the early 1950s; his club affiliations were with the National Bank of Romania (BNR), CS Dinamo, and finally Metalul Energia. He competed in several international matches, appearing at the 50 m rifle, prone event of the 1952 Summer Olympics. Though he retired from playing shortly after, he was called up as a coach at subsequent Olympic events, with contributions that were initially criticized as unsatisfactory. He also began publishing guides to shooting and works of history on the sports, as well as inventing a scoring gauge.

In the 1960s, Cișmigiu became an expert and referee for the International Shooting Sport Federation, which awarded him honorary gold and silver medals. His involvement with the international body and its various affiliates also led him to become a technical adviser and designer of several shooting ranges, from Phoenix, Arizona, to Tokyo. Caught up in a simmering conflict with the FRT, he was coach of several other national federations and squads, and received special honors from the Mexican Federation of Shooting and Hunting. After the Romanian Revolution of 1989, Cișmigiu tried to revive sport shooting in Romania, but concluded that the regional authorities were ignoring him. As an octogenarian, he tried to obtain increased pension rights for himself and other non-Olympic champions. He died in 2006, some four years after publishing a final textbook on pistol-shooting.