Olympic Games Gold Medalist Athlete. He was a member of the first United States Olympic team, and competed as a pistol shooter when the inaugural games were held in Athens, Greece in 1896. A member of a notable sporting family, his father, Charles Jackson Paine, had served as a General in the Union Army during the Civil War, and had thrice defended the America’s Cup yachting event for the United States. Sumner Paine attended Harvard University briefly in the 1890s, but finished up at the University of Colorado Medical School, where he earned a Medical Doctote. He never practiced medicine, however, leaving immediately to work in Paris, France as a gunsmith for the Gastin-Renette Galleries. He was a member of the Boston Athletic Association (BAA), which was associated with the great majority of the thirteen American athletes comprising the United States team at the Athens Olympics. His brother, John (a Harvard student), had already committed to the 1896 Olympics and went to Paris en route to Athens and recruited Sumner to also compete—both were world-class pistol event competitors. During the completion, onlookers noticed the Paine brothers paused to take sips of whiskey from their pocket flasks when the tension was running high. Several eyewitness accounts stated that soon many of the other marksmen each had their own pocket flasks as well. During the Athens games, on April 10, 1896, John easily won the first competition, the 25-meter military pistol event—Sumner placed second over his brother. They so far outclassed all other competitors that they agreed that whoever first won a gold medal would not enter the next event. And so, Sumner won a gold medal in the 30-meter freestyle pistol event. John and Sumner thought it unsporting to enter any further events and withdrew from the remaining pistol events. Back in America, Sumner Paines’s Olympic pistol title came in handy. One night in 1901, he returned home to find a family member in a compromising situation. He expelled another involved person with the help of four shots from a .32 caliber pistol. Although he was briefly jailed and charged with assault, Sumner was released when the police found his Olympic medal and realized he must have missed on purpose. He passed away at age 35 of pneumonia.