50m Free Pistol dropped from W/C

[Chris]

BEA,

They eliminated 50M prone and a men's shotgun event. The reason was to make equal number of men's and women's medal events. Now they have made more changes to make it so men and women shoot equal number of shots. They then added some mixed air pistol and air rifle events all 40 shots. In the end we have the same number of medal events and equal numbers for both men and women.

I am not sure all the above matters because over the last few years the AMU has shutdown international pistol. It is likely there will be no more US Pistol team unless someone funds them self to WC's etc because the USOC will not fund pistol shooting. Of course USA shooting who is mostly led by rifle shooters may not care because now they have more $'s to spend on rifle and shotgun since the USOC kept the budget the same but will not support pistol anymore.

[SlartyBartFast]

because the IOC will not fund pistol shooting

Neither the IOC, nor the ISSF provide funds to national shooting programs. Not sure where the money is doled out from in the USA, but I would hazard you mean the US Olympic Committee (https://www.teamusa.org/). And similar to most countries, I would expect that each sport has it's own fundraising and priorities (USA Shooting http://www.usashooting.org/).

Here in Canada, with the focus on "Owning the podium", if you don't have international standing and a chance at a podium finish you're not going to get any free money or much support as an individual athlete.

Can't say it's all that easy to understand what the competition path is through the Shooting Federation of Canada or the provincial Quebec Shooting Federation. The Quebec team seems to focus exclusively on air rifle and air pistol and calls the air only ranges they finance "ISSF ranges".

Not sure how to up the visibility locally, but no sport can sit around and expect others to finance national and international competition. The only viable option really is maintaining a large body of grassroots competitors eager to support higher levels of competition.

As I've suggested many times, the ISSF desperately needs to stop what seems to be a singular focus on the Olympics and start putting more effort into maintaining the quality of the National and Continental organisations and making them turn their attention into development of grass roots competition and wider general interest.

[Chris]

You are correct it is the US Olympic Committee not the IOC

[spektr]

In my humble opinion, we are missing the elephant in the room..... Precision shooting events lack the action required to nicely package on television. They move slowly and stuff doesnt happen that the everyman can follow...... Juxtapose this with Biathlon, where I saw over 10 k spectators cbeeting shot by shot as the targets were engaged. It has so much going to keep the spectators involved and that involvement is the mountain to climb....... We can talk all we want about the purity of Free Pistol, but if you cant sell tickets to the general public by giving them an engaging experience they can follow, the subject dies a slow death...... The ultimate truth is that there is a participant limit for the games in total, new easily televised sports are banging on the door to get into the games and unless hour sport can generate advert dollars thru viewership, your doomed...... Sorry but thats my view from the cheap seats......

[j-team]

In my humble opinion, we are missing the elephant in the room..... Precision shooting events lack the action required to nicely package on television. They move slowly and stuff doesnt happen that the everyman can follow...... Juxtapose this with Biathlon, where I saw over 10 k spectators cbeeting shot by shot as the targets were engaged. It has so much going to keep the spectators involved and that involvement is the mountain to climb....... We can talk all we want about the purity of Free Pistol, but if you cant sell tickets to the general public by giving them an engaging experience they can follow, the subject dies a slow death...... The ultimate truth is that there is a participant limit for the games in total, new easily televised sports are banging on the door to get into the games and unless hour sport can generate advert dollars thru viewership, your doomed...... Sorry but thats my view from the cheap seats......

Agree 100%.

The problem with rifle and pistol shooting is that unless the spectator understands the rules, they would have no idea what's going on. With shotgun however, you could take anyone off the street and they could easily figure out what's going on and how the winner wins (same for sports like tennis & football/soccer). We all sit here putting our arguements for various things from a position of understanding, but as far as the Olympics are concerned, it has to be televison friendly to the lay person, because if it isn't, then it doesn't bring in any money, and our sport fails in this regard.

[Mike M.]

It is likely there will be no more US Pistol team unless someone funds them self to WC's etc because the USOC will not fund pistol shooting.

OK...where do we sign up to fund ourselves to WCs? I'll scrape up the money.

[BEA]

And if you think it is boring now, imagine back before there were electronic targets. The spectators really had a hard time knowing what was going on then.

[Jon Math]

With the Olympic coverage showing entire hockey games, basketball games, every second of the ice skating, including the non-competition routines, hours of running qualification races , entire qualifying curling matches (that’s about as exciting as watching a chess match BTW) they don’t have time to show two minutes (and that often only of the medal ceremony if they do anything at all) for the dozens of other athletic events. So why should TV coverage or attendance or even numbers of males and females have anything to do with the athletes who partake in these other events? Many sports only the competitors and fans know who is on what team, it does not mean they are any less athletic or their records any easier to achieve. Odds are good those athletes are in it for the love of sport too, not a pay check.

Without looking on the web, can you name say the last three hammer throwers on your country’s National team who medaled? Or who won medals in the last Pentathlon? Neither can I but just because a sport is not viewer friendly does not mean it is should be declared a non sport and dropped.

[SlartyBartFast]

Neither can I but just because a sport is not viewer friendly does not mean it is should be declared a non sport and dropped.

Nobody has said that. But with viewer friendly sports wanting to join the Olympics, who do you think will win out? WHen it comes to revenue sharing, shooting is surprisingly in the middle of the pack with a C rating (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_sports)

But inclusing of a discipline or not is not about calling something a non-sport. It's about the international federation deciding how to fill their allocation of a limited number of athletes (11,000) and a limited number of medal events (36).

The mix of medal events needs to be 50/50 women/men.

And shooting didn't lose any medals. Women shooters gained events and 3 team events were cobbled together to avoid losing Olympic shooting events or medals.

Shooting sports have been as high as 21 events and as low as 2 events. For the last three games and for Tokyo, there are/were 15 events.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_ ... r_Olympics

In my rather amateurish opinion, I would rather have seen an event dropped and had 7 men's events and 7 women's events. Or done 7 and 7 and fought to keep FP based on history. But I suspect the IOC equal gender decision was firm.

[j-team]

The Olympics isn't a sporting event, it hasn't been that for at least 20 years. It is a business.

In business, would you continue to do something that wasn't profitable? Or, would you introduce more profitable practises once they came available?

It's a no brainer, things change, and there's no way that the opinions of non profitable "average shooters" will change how a large profit making organisation will make decisions.

Just carry on and shoot what you enjoy. Just like Muzzle loaders, IPSC, Palma, ATA, Silhouette etc. shooters have been doing for ever. just because they aren't in the Olympics, it hasn't stopped people taking part, enjoying and excelling.

[Jon Math]

The Olympics isn't a sporting event, it hasn't been that for at least 20 years. It is a business.

That's the real answer in a nut shell.

[BEA]

Too many professionals involved now, and too much money. Too much money polutes everything and encourages all kinds of new cheating methods because the potential payoff is so lucrative.

[David M]

The Olympics isn't a sporting event, it hasn't been that for at least 20 years. It is a business.

That's the real answer in a nut shell.

Its not called the 5 Ring Circus for nothing...

[Misny]

It isn't about tv coverage IMHO. Although the US has a large percentage of gun ownership among the population, few are interested in competitive shooting and fewer still are interested in international style shooting. On average gun owner forums, there is little interest in shooting pistols beyond spitting distance. Internationally, there are few countries that strongly support shooting teams. I don't know what the answer is to spark interest (I'm not that smart) but it looks like international competitive shooting is dying a slow death, due to lack of interest. There is a big movement worldwide to make shooting distasteful and socially unacceptable.

[jmdavis]

It isn't about tv coverage IMHO. Although the US has a large percentage of gun ownership among the population, few are interested in competitive shooting and fewer still are interested in international style shooting. On average gun owner forums, there is little interest in shooting pistols beyond spitting distance. Internationally, there are few countries that strongly support shooting teams. I don't know what the answer is to spark interest (I'm not that smart) but it looks like international competitive shooting is dying a slow death, due to lack of interest. There is a big movement worldwide to make shooting distasteful and socially unacceptable.

One issue is that precision pistol, whether air, rimfire, or centerfire is hard. It takes dedication. It takes time. It takes money.

I watch the world cups because they are streamed. I have seen every minute of every final of every rapid, air and free pistol world cup over the past 4 years. I cannot watch the Olympics because I don't watch television and in the US they won't stream the events and you cannot buy access without buying much more.

Much of the world wants equal outcomes. Particularly equal numbers of medals. Of course some countries don't want women to beat their men and others don't want their populations to learn how to use guns. Free Pistol was one of the oldest Olympic sports in the modern age. But poltics and politcal correctness got in the way of sport and that spelled its end.

In the US, people don't even know what FP is. They thing AP is for kids and they will never see a Rapidfire match. Part of the reason for that is that everyone who has shot a gun, thinks that he or she is a good shooter. They think that hitting a large target at close range exhibits skill. And some of them, particularly some who think that they are good shooters, don't like seeing others shoot better than they do.

The other side of the coin is that in the US we shoot 50 yards with 22, CF and 45 at thousands of matches throughout the country every year. But you also have to take those guns and shoot sustained fire at 25 yards. It's not free pistol, that is for sure. The target is bigger, the time is shorter, and the rules are different. But thousands of people do it weekend after weekend throughout the year.

[Jon Math]

The Olympics isn't a sporting event, it hasn't been that for at least 20 years. It is a business.

That's the real answer in a nut shell.

Its not called the 5 Ring Circus for nothing...

I am a retired athletic trainer. When I was just out of college it was a rite of passage to volunteer a summer to work at the Olympic Training Center and then spend another summer or winter volunteering at the Olympic or Pan-Am games.
The common consensus of people who fell for that trap was that they never wanted to be associated with the IOC again. “Used” is the most common thing you’ll hear them say about the experience.
I read the contract that a trainer was expected to sign. It said in no uncertain terms you were on duty and on call (unpaid) 24/7 during your term of service. You were expected to do anything you were told to do, and “They understand you are a Nationally Certified trainer but the IOC is not interested in your opinions or knowledge on the subject of treating athletes. You are expected to do what you are told to do without discussion and if you didn’t there were plenty of trainers who would”.
With so many professionals in the Olympics now (many of whom have their own private trainers) I’m not sure if the IOC even uses volunteer trainers anymore.
I had never hear the five ring circus line before, but based on the running of it and the so called sports that are being put into it it’s more than correct.

[django]

spectator love drama. No drama in shooting sport. All competitor calm...look booring. Don't me get wrong. I love shooting. Try look at vintage Ollimpic shooting. Look at angry shooter "Tanyo Kiryakov" from bulgaria ( https://youtu.be/jO5XQpvqkuM ). I love to see more shooter like him on current event. He's not shy showing his angry expression on bad shooting. We spectator love see this drama. But...wait all shooter taught to suppress our emotion. So no emotion, no drama, and boring. Look at archery sport. We see drama on it. When player head to head winning a medal. When spectator allow to scream make noise, good music. And look at issf we shoot with michael jacson music ? wtf.... We see drama on 50 meter pistol shooting. But now they wipe it. So that's true this is dying sport. Sad...

[Alexander]

Django, you have never witnessed the German shooting Bundesliga?!

[sparky]

The last time Olympic shooting had newsworthy drama, it was probably about Matt Emmons meeting Katerina Kurkova.

[django]

Django, you have never witnessed the German shooting Bundesliga?!

Yes i saw it. I hope all shooting tournament like German bundesliga.