Hit/Miss Rapid Fire final on paper targets.

[j-team]

Maybe the ISSF should drop the qualification score out of all Finals? Why should Air, 50m, Sport, 3P Rifle, Trap etc be different ?

OK, I know I'm getting off topic here but I've always thought that the "precision" events would be more suitable for an elimination type final than the "rapid" ones.

Format for Free Pistol, Air Pistol, 3P and prone:

Top 8 into final, qualification round dropped, start from zero score. Then all 8 finalists fire 4 shots as per normal final but at that point the one with the lowest score drops out, then one drops out for each of the next 5 shots leaving just two shooters to fire the last (10th) shot deciding the gold. Oh, and do away with decimal scoring so there is the added possibility of a tie, therefore a shoot off. (Ok you would have to keep decimals for prone rifle, or make them shoot without slings!).

Once again, sorry for wandering off topic...

[David Levene]

Now I am sure Dave Levene will straighten me out---but the new finals I saw on You tube showed a new type of finals using the five targets ---each shooter got 4 seconds for five shots and the scoring was simple 10 or 0, After 5 rds for each competitor started the elimination rounds until one person was standing with the highest or the fewest outs. Thats's the way I remember the video---which has been removed by ISSF. "Doc"

It's actually 1 point (not 10) for a hit and 0 points for a miss, a hit being 9.7 or better.

There are lots of videos available on the You Tube ISSF Channel

[David Levene]

Maybe the ISSF should drop the qualification score out of all Finals?

Maybe

[john bickar]

Maybe the ISSF should drop the qualification score out of all Finals?

Maybe

Ugh.

[j-team]

Ugh.

BTW, I 100% agree with you.

[JamesH]

It's actually 1 point (not 10) for a hit and 0 points for a miss, a hit being 9.7 or better.

Thats the dumbest part of the whole thing.

[David Levene]

It's actually 1 point (not 10) for a hit and 0 points for a miss, a hit being 9.7 or better.

Thats the dumbest part of the whole thing.

It does seem strange that it's 9.7 and not 10. It does however seem to produce good competition in the finals.

I wonder what effect changing to 10.0 would have had.

I would have thought that using 9.7 would be least of the problems using paper targets. A simple Perspex template and a pencil would enable targets to be marked up easily for rapid scoring. If someone challenged the accuracy of the marking on a close shot then simply using a nonious gauge would resolve the problem.

Any marking inaccuracy is likely to be much less than that caused by the use of target centres on the Rapid target.

[mika]

I would have thought that using 9.7 would be least of the problems using paper targets. A simple Perspex template and a pencil would enable targets to be marked up easily for rapid scoring. If someone challenged the accuracy of the marking on a close shot then simply using a nonious gauge would resolve the problem.

Any marking inaccuracy is likely to be much less than that caused by the use of target centres on the Rapid target.

Wouldn't a very simple, although "slightly" oversize gauge be enough? In 25 m CF pistol is gauged with a 9.65 mm gauge and obviously "out" hits with a .32 can be "in". Similarly, there would be a .22 gauge with a huge (about 5 cm diameter, I guess) flange. If it touches 10 ring, it's a hit in the final. A very simple process, no aligning transparencies, just like normal gauging.

Or am I missing something important here?

Mika

[David Levene]

Wouldn't a very simple, although "slightly" oversize gauge be enough? In 25 m CF pistol is gauged with a 9.65 mm gauge and obviously "out" hits with a .32 can be "in". Similarly, there would be a .22 gauge with a huge (about 5 cm diameter, I guess) flange. If it touches 10 ring, it's a hit in the final. A very simple process, no aligning transparencies, just like normal gauging.

Or am I missing something important here?

I was just suggesting a way of avoiding having to gauge most of the shots in the 9.6 to 9.8 range. Using a template it should be relatively easy to draw a circle within about a mm of the exact place. All shots except those within a couple of mm could therefore be scored by eye.

Anything closer than that would need to be gauged.

You could use a circular plug gauge, I think it would need to be 24mm diameter, but there is already a suitable gauge available from the ISSF. The nonius gauge is designed for decimal scoring and takes no longer to use than a circular plug gauge

edit note: the gauge would actually need to be 29.6mm diameter

[mika]

I was just suggesting a way of avoiding having to gauge most of the shots in the 9.6 to 9.8 range. Using a template it should be relatively easy to draw a circle within about a mm of the exact place. All shots except those within a couple of mm could therefore be scored by eye.

Anything closer than that would need to be gauged.

You could use a circular plug gauge, I think it would need to be 24mm diameter, but there is already a suitable gauge available from the ISSF. The nonius gauge is designed for decimal scoring and takes no longer to use than a circular plug gauge

Guess you are right. Especially the point that you can use something you already may have (the nonious gauge) instead of yet another tool, especially if ISSF starts modifying the diameter of the hit zone.

The following is my own reasoning just to undestand how the decimal scoring works. Is it even close to reality?

What is the actual diameter of the "9.7 ring" in mm? Are the decimals directly ring distances from the preceding to the next one, like here 0.7 times the distance (50 mm) from 9 to 10 ring, which would give 35 mm from 9 ring and 15 mm from 10 ring, in which case the diameter would be 130 mm? A 5.6 mm bullet hole just touching the 130 mm ring would have the center 15 mm + 2.8 mm = 17.8 mm from the 10 ring, so I guess the flange on a simple gauge would be twice that, 35.6 mm.


Mika

[David Levene]

[What is the actual diameter of the "9.7 ring" in mm? Are the decimals directly ring distances from the preceding to the next one, like here 0.7 times the distance (50 mm) from 9 to 10 ring, which would give 35 mm from 9 ring and 15 mm from 10 ring, in which case the diameter would be 130 mm? A 5.6 mm bullet hole just touching the 130 mm ring would have the center 15 mm + 2.8 mm = 17.8 mm from the 10 ring, so I guess the flange on a simple gauge would be twice that, 35.6 mm.

The 10 ring diameter is 100mm. The 9 ring diameter is 180mm.
The difference in diameter is 80mm so the distance between the rings is 40mm.
Each nominal decimal "ring" is therefore 40/10=4mm further away from the centre than the next highest one.

The gauge radius would therefore have to be 4x3=12 plus 5.6/2=2.8 giving a total of 14.8mm. The actual gauge diameter would therefore be 29.6mm.

(All disregarding the allowable tolerances)

[RobStubbs]

James' analogy was actually spot on.

Not quite.

Now it would be like running 100m which was timed to 100th of a second to qualify for the final. Then have the final in which you had to run only 10 metres six times over and it is timed only to the nearest whole second to determine the winner.

As I said, "The only difference is that in the 100m the final is the same "course of fire" as the previous rounds; in RFP it is a different course." I obviously therefore agree with your "Not quite".

So the analogy is spot on yet it's different, that's clear....

I have no problem with the ISSF doing what they like. I don't like it and I personally feel it is the wrong way for shooting to go but that's just me.

Plus perhaps more importantly why only ORF ? Arguable one of the more exciting spectator events anyway.

Shooting to my mind is a test of skill which culminates in a final for the best shooters to win. Starting afresh negates that and less able shooters are given more of a chance - as I see it unfairly. If shooting wants to change to a qualification round followed by a new final then it may win more spectators but IMHO it will be poorer for it. But if that's what the ISSF want then do it for all olympic events.

Rob.

[mika]

The 10 ring diameter is 100mm. The 9 ring diameter is 180mm.
The difference in diameter is 80mm so the distance between the rings is 40mm.

David, thanks! Of course, if I had a ruler and a target at hand at the office, I could have measured instead of guessing the 9 ring size... Funny I had never really even thought about it, just thought the difference in distance of each successive ring would have been same from the center of the target, as it is in the precision target (difference in diameter 50 mm, 25 mm between rings). But now that you pointed it out, I just pulled out an RF target and it's obvious even without measuring that the targets are different in that aspect, too.

Mika

[David Levene]

So the analogy is spot on yet it's different, that's clear....

The analogy was perfect in that your performance in the qualification round is only to get you into the final. Thereafter it means nothing, which is what several people are not happy with.

The difference is only that the format of the final is not he same as the qualification round.

Plus perhaps more importantly why only ORF ? Arguable one of the more exciting spectator events anyway.

I would be more inclined to ask "why only ORF at the moment". I have absolutely no inside information but would not be at all surprised if, provided that the IOC see the new format as a success, we don't see revised final formats in other events.

I'm not totally sure how exciting ORF in its old incarnation was for spectators, especially those who were not aficionados of the event. Half of the qualification scores were shot on the day before the final, the other half were shot hours before the final. With a normal sized Olympic finals hall you didn't even have all of the finals competitors shooting at the same time.

In case anyone thinks that I didn't like the old format, I was on range for every second of the RF (senior men) at the last World Championships; the last time the old finals format was used at World level. I thoroughly enjoyed every bit of it but can easily see how "lower level nerds" might find the new format more exciting.

[Mike M.]

As I've said, I can buy into HIT/MISS scoring, especially in real time (i.e. electronic targets, falling plates, or breakables).

Personally, I think it might be worthwhile to do some low-level experimentation with a revised format optimized for club-level matches. Falling plates. Duckpins on a sawhorse. Holders for clay pigeons. And run the whole match that way. Maybe even bring back the old 2-second string. :-)

ISSF wants something telegenic, but forgets that the club-level shooters are the backbone of the sport. There's a great big world outside of the national-level ranges.

[RobStubbs]

ISSF wants something telegenic, but forgets that the club-level shooters are the backbone of the sport. There's a great big world outside of the national-level ranges.

That is a very fair point and a big problem. Now I have no idea who pulls the strings - maybe IOC -> ISSF, but it is changing the sport (regardless of whether you think it's good or bad).

I suspect the ISSF aren't really fussed with club level shooting etc, but even national level it has caused problems, and will cause even more if as David mentions (and I agree with) it could shake down to all the finals in all events.

Perhaps a topic for another thread, but is TV then ruling the sport of (olympic) shooting to the detriment of shooting, and is it time to back away ???

Rob.

[Mike M.]

I think it's a matter of TV money ruining all sports. That long-term deal the IOC did with NBC Sports effectively put the TV producers in charge of the Olympic Games.

[Greg R]

I see Kruger targets have a finals target where the 9.7 is another circle added to the original. These could be drawn in with a white pen using a circle template to the finals targets and makes it quite easy for hit and miss to be seen by callers/scorers.

[j-team]

Seems the Germans prefer the "old" version:

http://www.dsb.de/deutsche_meisterschaf ... 30_10.html

Interesting.

[Jacko]

Things we might try differently....
Modifying the spreadsheet to have the option to automatically sort the shooters names by current rankings.
(We just had a column showing current placings, would need to have the names revert back into 'bay positions' when entering the scores for the next series to would save any confusion.)