TargetTalk

USAS appears to have a policy of only sending competitors to those events at which Olympic Quota slots can be earned. Which means that the United States does not field competitors at the Pan-Am Games, etc. Even some World Cup events.

I'm thinking that USAS should establish a "B Team" roster. Competitors applying to the B Team would be eligible to travel and compete at their own expense. The roster would establish a Right of First Refusal pecking order...a match would be advertised as available to the B Team, shooters would apply, and the best of the applicants notified that they can go.

This would allow the USA to field competitors at more events, and give more shooters experience at the International level of competition. Which is ultimately good for the sport. It's one thing for club-level shooters to read about matches in Distant, Exotic Places...quite another to have someone who has been there in their own club.

Thoughts?

Mike, USAS has a "B team" , two in fact, a Junior Developement team, and the National Development Team

http://www.usashooting.org/12-the-team/ ... ngteam/ndt
I am not sure how current this list is, since one of those development team members shot in London last year :^)

These members often travel with the National Team to World Cups and other Championships to shoot MQS and gain experience. I know the policy and procedures have changed over the years, but rest assured, USAS is not wasting oppurtunites to train its up and coming athletes.

I kinda think they already do something like that. John Zurek (always a bridesmaid) comes to mind. I believe it's politics myself.

How are national development team members selected? Is it mostly just at the discretion of Coach Luzov or are there minimum score/ranking requirements?

Mike M. wrote:USAS appears to have a policy of only sending competitors to those events at which Olympic Quota slots can be earned. Which means that the United States does not field competitors at the Pan-Am Games, etc. Even some World Cup events.
<snip>
Thoughts?

Not true, there were a number of USA rifle shooters at Changwon, and of course shooters travel to other international competitions outside of quota qualifying events.

As mentioned it's partly a political decision as to whether or not to send tier 2 athletes to world cup events, but also non-shooting coaches and managers must be sent and it all costs money. Should athletes be able to go if they can self fund ? I'm not going down that road as that's a hard one to call.

Rob.

I'm not in favor of athletes being able to participate based on their ability to pay their own way. That is what it sounds like it would boil down to.

You could go the Canadian system where we are self funded, AND, we have to meet high cut scores. LOL. Sigh.

We use to have fairly low cut scores for the National team. We had a tonne of people going to world cups, but didn't necessarily do well. So using that against us, in the last two quads, the scores have gone up significantly. To the point that now there are no members on the men's national pistol team (thank goodness for the women's pistol team).

Anyway, I think to have a successful program, you need to be in the middle. You don't want people to go to world cups all the time, and always doing poorly, because that doesn't really help development. However, having no participation at world cups is also not helpful. So you gotta have reasonable cut scores so people can compete internationally and gain some experience, but are getting the coaching and support they need to grow and develop as athletes when they are training/compete at home. But that seems to be the pie in the sky these days.

-trinity

I don't see how limiting participation in what is already a *very* small sport here in the U.S. can ever be a good thing. If someone is willing to fund their own travel to go to a match, I say why not?

Wow! This discussion is a flashback to 20 years ago. Rest assured, USA Shooting sends teams to all major events. The merits and/or detriments of a performance standard score have been debated since their creation. Allowing unsupported "b" level shooters pay their own way... well, that's been discussed for a long time, too. Keep up the discussion. Maybe you'll come up with a solid business case for a change.

How about non-Olympic events? How do US athletes get to compete in 300m, men's sport pistol at WCH? I see there were US shooters competing in those events in 2010 wch?

kaban56 wrote:How about non-Olympic events? How do US athletes get to compete in 300m, men's sport pistol at WCH? I see there were US shooters competing in those events in 2010 wch?

You probably mean men's Standard Pistol and Center Fire Pistol. There is a selection matrix for the WCH team, and all non-Olympic events are self-funded.

Doing this from memory, but the selection matrix is something like this:

RF 1 2 7
FP 3 5 8
AP 4 6 9
ST 10 12
CF 11 13

The idea being that you can make an air pistol team out of free pistol shooters, but rapid fire shooters are beautiful and unique snowflakes :)

Non-Olympic events get last priority, and doubles fill in the rest of the team slots.

ETA matrix

john bickar wrote:...but rapid fire shooters are beautiful and unique snowflakes :)

Do not know that I have ever been referred to as a snowflake before (or beautiful, but that's in the eye of the beholder).
At 90+ Kg, that would be a fierce snow flurry.

RMar wrote:Wow! This discussion is a flashback to 20 years ago. Rest assured, USA Shooting sends teams to all major events. <snip>.

No they don't which is what the OP was saying. If you had a look at the results for the Changwon world cup, you'll see no US pistol shooters.

Now the US aren't unique. GBR sent no-one, Italy from what I saw sent no pistol shooters. There were also quite a few other top names missing. But I don't find any of that suprising since it's the first year of the next olympic cycle, no quota places to be won, and other training is probably more useful right now for many shooters.

Rob.

And I said major events (e.g. Pan Am Games, World Championships, Olympics, etc.). USA Shooting will send teams to major events. It has and will probably continue to use discretion for world cups.