Recreational Olympic Pistol vs. Competitive Olympic Pistol

[Russ]

Here is the history. In the early 1980s, I was selected to participate in training in SKA Kiev before the USSR military championship. I was young, ambitious, and goal oriented. One lady was assigned to coach us and we practiced Free Pistol in this particular day. I experienced some problems and had difficulties what was going on in my performance and I was "shy" to ask the lady about specific questions about Free Pistol. She saw me struggle and she also waited until I was ready to accept a new piece of information. She watched my struggle. Finally, she came to me, asked my permission to make a shot with my pistol. I definitely gave her permission. I did not expect anything to shake my current way of thinking at that moment. She took my Free Pistol, made one shot and asked me to check the value of the shot. I checked my spot scope. I realized it was a "ten." This shot started our conversation. She immediately made the point that her knowledge and skills were much superior than I initially assumed. I had no clue who was assigned to work with this group. After practice, I asked for the name of this lady and I was told she was Nina Stolyarova. She was the gold medalist from the 40th World Shooting Championship in Phenix, Arizona.

One shot was pretty convincing for me made by a female coach who was supposed to have no clue of how to shoot Free Pistol by my assumption.

I had no clue initially that Free Pistol in the 1970s was a common program for women only with 30 shots (MP3 vs. MP6).

http://www.airbertach.com/wwmcmillan/wo ... _1970.html

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1 ... 19,6743242

[Alexander]

Do you have any clue why the ISSF kicked women out of Free Pistol later? (And out of Standard Pistol too?)

Thanks,
Alexander

[Russ]

I do not have knowledge about the official version of this story; I can only guess. My version will be that Free Pistol is more heavier in those days and more complex in terms of development of high score performance.

By the way, this example is a clear explanation of how the knowledge of development of high proficiency in Free Pistol will affect the performance in all disciplines of ISSF, slow fire programs.