Rambling thoughts on the new olympic final format

[Alexander]

While I don't really give a darn about what rapid fire does

I'm hoping this new finals format is just the last nail in the coffin of rapid

What's rapid fire ever done to you? Why do you want to kill it, huh?
Rapid fire wants to give you a big ol' hug.

It's lovely said of you, John, and I shall gladly accept the hug, vicariously for Eric. Out of bad conscience for my own
demisal wishes. :-)

But what Rapidfire Pistol has done, is that it (or Free Pistol) occupies the slot that could and should rather hold
Centrefire Pistol in the Olympic Games.
And there are many reasons why this latter one should be there, not the former. Not because of the pistoleros.
But because of the endangered worldwide survival of the shooting sports as a whole.

Alexander

[Hemmers]

Kinect guys! No attachment!

I think someone suggested that as a cost-effective alternatvie to SCATT for home training. It's resolution is measured in MM or even CM though - enough to pick up movements and distinguish people, but nowhere near adequate to provide an accurate trace.

That's not quite what I meant though - that shows you someone taking over as they take over, but if you want something that summarises the finals shot-by-shot, showing who took over when, we don't really have any standard way of doing that at the moment.

Ah I see what you're getting at. You could do something with a graph plotting scores on the y-axis against shots on the x-axis, with a line for each shooter, getting closer/further apart and crossing over when people overtake. That would be quite a powerful visual aid actually.

Knocked together the plot below for the Changwon 3P final:

After each shot the average score is calculated, and that value is subtracted from each shooter's actual score (hence the plus or minus values).
For a broadcast graphic you would do away with the scale, and just put a number next to the most recent shot for each shooter indicating how far behind the leader they are.


I also tried a system that subtracted the shooter's score from the score of whoever started in the lead (in this case, Bryhn, although in fact you could use any shooter as a reference score - to 8th man for example). The problem with that of couse is that the line for whoever you pick as a marker was straight - as their score is effectively zero (and everyone else is either x-points ahead or behind):

IMO, the average-based system allows everyone's line to move, giving a better feel for how people are performing relative to the rest of the group.


I also ran a test on just using raw scores, but of course that means your y-axis needs to run from 1100 to about 1300. On a 200-point scale, the separation of just a dozen points leaves all the lines in one tight bundle (which is pretty useless as an info-graphic):

[john bickar]

Rajmond Debevec of Sylvania

He is, after all, a luminary of the shooting sports.

A shining light, if you will.

[Raymond Odle]

This discussion about the new finals and possible changes is interesting. There have been legitimate constructive criticisms about the announcers. I thought I would give another perspective.
Has anyone volunteered to announce a finals at their local or national matches. I suggest it would be fun and educational. I just had the experience at Colorado Springs. The CRO asked for help announcing. Having done this back home but not being familiar with the new procedure, I volunteered. Simply giving position number and score would be easy. I was quickly corrected on the new format and what my duties were. Speaking is not my strong point, but I did volunteer. Yes! I did mess up several names more than once. The kids took it well, not so some parents. And yes I did enjoy trying something new.

My point is that this is a different skill. It was a challenge for me to read off hand written names taped to a lap top screen, then correctly identify a score (small font- Is it a 6 or an 8 or a 9?) Thankfully I had help looking over my shoulder helping point out changes in rankings, high finals score, etc. I am sure the big boys at the networks have a better system.

My point is simply. This was not so easy. Maybe for other it would be.
I did like the use of family names instead of position numbers. I did not see any real need for the 15 seconds commentary. It just gave me one more time to mess up a simple name. I suppose with experience I or anyone else would improve. Would I do it again, sure I would. Will I be asked, not so sure about that?

Ray Odle

[Colin]

To be honest Raymond, she's been doing it long enough that she should at least know the rudimentares of the sport by now, also the top shooters at these events don't alter that much and she still gets it wrong.And also announcing in one final that someone shoot a perfect 10.10 when it was a 10.0.She talks over the person announcing the shooters, that may not be her fault but to have two people talking at the same time is just annoying.
The ISSF have made leaps and bounds on the quality of pictures from these events it just the commentary lets it down badly.

[mika]

But what Rapidfire Pistol has done, is that it (or Free Pistol) occupies the slot that could and should rather hold
Centrefire Pistol in the Olympic Games.
And there are many reasons why this latter one should be there, not the former. Not because of the pistoleros.
But because of the endangered worldwide survival of the shooting sports as a whole.

Alexander

I'm totally with you regarding the worries about survival of the shooting sports, but, on the other hand, I don't completely agree that CF would be better in that regard. Isn't RF the only sport that actually requires a semi-auto handgun? You could, at least theoretically, shoot the CF even with a single-shot pistol. Not so with RF.

Of course I don't know whether the legal problem in other countries is the function of the gun (single, semi-auto, revolver etc) or the caliber. Here in Finland the discussion is mostly around semi-auto handguns, not that much whether it's a .22, .32 or a .45. That's because of two very unfortunate and cruel crimes conducted with .22 semi-auto pistols.

But politics aside, while I'm less incompetent in standard pistol or centerfire than in RF (I don't even have a reasonable gun for the latter), what I think really speaks for RF is that it's so different from the other pistol shooting sports. Women's sport pistol could be opened for men (like we do in Finland with the identical national smallbore pistol event), so we would have the 30+30 format available for all.

I'm a bit confused over the CF pistol shooting event. I have to admit, that I enjoy shooting a .32 more than a .22. But to be honest, there is quite little difference between the two. The recoil is only slightly different with light target loads for the .32. There are no reasonably priced factory loads for practice in .32. It's just a slightly bigger smallbore pistol.

Just a wandering thought, which may reveal that I'm more of an IPSC shooter than olympic style shooter. What about an RF event with the traditional CF target pistols and a minimum momentum for the bullet, say something like the current factory loads that you can actually feel going off? Lapua 6,35 g and 240 m/s comes to my mind. No recoil buffering etc, so that the current CF guns would be competitive. There would be at least some need for recoil management, which is almost trivial in the 30+30.

I don't even dream about anyone considering something like that for the olympics. Just trying to come up with something slightly different, that would develop the shooting sports into a direction where the shooter's skills would make difference in a slightly different way. And that wouldn't require completely new equipment, giving more opportunities to use pistols that many may have buried in their closets. Maybe even make a provision in the rules that instead of turning targets or electronic scoring, a simple timer with audible signals that counts overtime shots would be allowed for competition. That way, the only thing needed would be a 5-lane range with .32-proof backstop. And in practice, whatever takes any fast .22 lr bullet, will also take a .32 LWC.

What do you think, would we need bigger than 8-ring for the current style finals scoring area to get enough hits in the 4-sec string to make a difference between the shooters ;)

Mika