TargetTalk

Hey,
This may seem like a stupid question, but I am desperately confused on how the Olympic Trials work for shooting. For other sports you go to trials and if you are in the top X number of the amount of people they are taking to the Olympics, than you are an Olympian. However, in shooting it seems that in order to go, you have to shoot World Cups and get a specific amount of points and meet a "quota" system. Then USA Shooting announces the 2 shooters who get to go to the Olympics a month before trials... begging the question of "why even hold an Olympic Trials if the Olympians are determined before the first shot goes down range?" I mean how would you tell the guy who just shot a 1195 out of the blue at trials that he isn't good enough?
If someone could explain this to me I would greatly appreciate it!


Thanks in advance
-Ryan

Obviously each country will have its own rules for final selection but, in broad terms, the overiding international rules are:-

To have a shooter in an event at the Olympics then, apart from double starters described below, a shooter has to have won a quota place FOR THEIR COUNTRY (they are not specific to the shooter winning it) in that event. Quota places are allocated to specific World Championships, Continental Championships and World Cups in each Olympic cycle.

To win a QP at one of those matches you must be higher placed than others who have not already won one or whose nation already has the maximum number of QPs (2 in most of the events, 1 in each of the womens shotgun events). Any shooter can only win one quota place for his/her nation.

For this Olympic cycle there are an additional 9 quota places for the Olympics host nation and a further 24 which are handed out by a special commission in the interests of wider participation at the OGs.

At those same matches where QPs can be won, plus a few others, shooters can achieve a minimum qualifying score (MQS) which must be achieved to make that shooter eligable to shoot in that event at OGs.

It is then down to each nation to decide who will fill each of their quota places from those who have achieved the MQS.

International rules say that once a shooter has been selected to fill a QP then they can "double start" in other events where they also have the MQS with the proviso that no nation may have more than 2 competitors in any event.

I hope that is an understandable description of the broad international rules; there are obviously more detailed rules behind them.

Ryan,

The Olympic team selection procedure has been published by USAS for about three years now. It is available on their website.

Historically those guys that come out of nowhere and shoot 1195 as you say, have performed dismally at the Olympics. The newer selection procedure has been designed to at least partially alleviate that. The goal is to select the best possible Olympic team, not the easiest for someone to get lucky and sneak onto. In some countries, their team is selected by committee if you think ours is unfair.

In no smallbore event this year are there two people already qualified, thus the need for a regular selection match. Additionally, the USOC requires ranking of the top six finishers so a selection match would be required even if two shooters qualified through their international finishes.

A unique happening this year is that the Beijing world cup was canceled which was scheduled for the beginning of July. So now there is no way to get a last minute MQS for your miracle, out of nowhere shooter. Thus many shooters paid their own way to the Munich and Milan world cups just to get their just-in-case MQS. So this time if you don't have an MQS then even if you do shoot your miracle scores you won't be able to make the team.

Eric U