Shotgun shooters reload to spearhead Kuwaiti challenge in Paris

The most powerful Kuwaiti in the history of sport might be serving a 15-year Olympic ban but the Gulf country still hopes to make its mark at the Paris Games with shotguns, sabres and a single-handed dinghy.

Sheikh Ahmad al-Fahad al-Sabah, the longtime Olympic Council of Asia president and once one of the most influential people in the sporting world, received the lengthy ban in May for breaches of International Olympic Committee (IOC) ethics policies.

The controversial sheikh was also once a major player at soccer's governing body FIFA but his politicking did not always work in Kuwait's favour and the country's greatest Olympic moment is not actually credited to the oil-rich emirate.

When Fehaid Aldeehani topped the podium in the men's double trap shooting at the 2016 Games in Rio, he did so as an "independent Olympic athlete" because Kuwait had been suspended by the IOC.

The reason for the ban was government interference, the result of attempts by other members of Kuwait's ruling family to exert control over Sheikh Ahmad's sporting fiefdoms.

All five of the Olympic medals won by Kuwaitis have come with the help of a shotgun and it is again to the traps and skeet range that the country will be looking for medal success in Paris.

Mohamed Al-Daihani will make his Olympic debut at the age of 40 and follow in the footsteps of his father Nayef, who competed in the skeet at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.

After qualifying for the Games by taking third place in skeet at the Asian Championships in January, he paid tribute to Aldeehani and twice Olympic bronze medallist Abdullah Al-Rashidi.

"(Their) achievements are considered a source of pride for Kuwait, as well as an inspiration for all Kuwaiti shooters, and I am one of them," he