Thoughts about new Women's 25m finals

[trinity]

For reference, video from Changwon 25m finals: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHp2kD1YdvA

Some issues for discussion:
1) Overall duration: For the gold/silver medallists, you have at least 10 series in finals (1 series sighters, 5 series semi-finals, 4 series finals to get to 7 points). Of course, to get to 7 points can take many more than 4 series if there are ties. In the video above, at the end there were some late shots even by these great shooters, and a late shot is penalized by -1 hit.

2) For gold/silver match, there is potentially a long (half an hour perhaps) wait between the semi-finals and the gold match. And there is no additional sighting time. So the gold/silver athletes shoot the sighters, shoot the semi-finals, and then have to wait for potentially quite a long time for their turn.

3) Since score is tracked by hits (a 10.3 or above is a hit), and you get points if you have more hits than your opponent. It is possible for a shooter to score 1 hit with a 10.3, and then shoot 4 5.0s, and beat someone who shot 5x10.2s (which would be scored as 0 hits). That means a 30.3 would've beat a 51.0. That makes little sense.

4) What happens if both sides get exhausted and are unable to hit the 10.3? Does the loop repeat forever then? Imagine if this is the bronze medal match, so this happens while the silver/gold match athletes are waiting, waiting...

-trinity

[jbshooter]

Your third point has always been the case regardless of final format.......
Who is the better shooter - the person who scores 100.0, or the one who shoots 99.9?

[trinity]

Your third point has always been the case regardless of final format.......
Who is the better shooter - the person who scores 100.0, or the one who shoots 99.9?

I fail to understand your argument. The person who shoots 100.0 is better, just slightly, than someone shooting a 99.9.

However, 30.3 is not better than 51.0. If we were in a war, I'd take the person who can shoot 10.2 every time rather than someone who can shoot a 10.3 once out of five tries.

-trinity

[j-team]

Of all the new final formats, I think this is the worst one.

You correctly point out that there is no limit to the amount of shots that each stage could end up being, especially the medal duels. You will need 50 rounds to win the gold medal, and that's a minimum, assuming you win every series, if you don't it's more!

They could have made it the same as RF and just had a shooter drop off after each series until they were down to the last two.

It's the only match/final where "start from zero" happens twice.

It will be interesting what changes are made between now and the 2016 Olympics.

[renzo]

Last weekend I had to endure (there's no other words for it) a Women Sport Pistol Finals in a greart match we held at our Club, surveyed by the national shooting authorities.

We were opening our new (and first in many years) 25 m. range, and the RO was an experienced ISSF "A" judge. We build the range in the hope of attracting big bore shooters to more disciplined shooting routines, and durng the classification round this goal was achieved: everybody was thrilled when the duel stage began.

But unfortunately the ladies wore out during the finals, and determining the gold medal took the limit of 12 final series. For the benefit of the OP, the rules state that if no shooter in a series gets a single point, then EVERY SHOOTER in the line is awarded one point, so the maximum potential duration of the finals is 12 series, which it took.

By the end of the pre-final 5 series that determined the two shooters going for gold and silver and the two disputing the bronze, the initial interest had waned considerably.

Being an ISSF judge, I can't understand for the life of me which is the sense of the pre-final, when shooting for theseven points is far more clear to shooter and non-shooter public alike, and shorter, too.

Figure that the gals had to shoot 60 classification rounds and 60 final rounds. As one previous poster supposed, it also showed "unfair", as after the first 5 series, in the final 7 series the shooter who took the silver had 4 points less than the one shooting for the bronze.

In other post I wrote down my reflections on the finals format for three positions, and among the present judges the consensus was that it would be desirable for the ISSF to rethink - in view of the experiences gathered during 2013 - and shorten those two finals: Women Sport Pistol by erasing the first 5 series and with all the finalist shooting 7 series for points, classificating according their scores; and maybe reducing the 3-P format to two 5-shot series in kneeling and prone, one 5 series in standing and then the last five shots standing like it is in the rules as of today.

My 2 cents.

Regards from Argentina

[trinity]

...

But unfortunately the ladies wore out during the finals, and determining the gold medal took the limit of 12 final series. For the benefit of the OP, the rules state that if no shooter in a series gets a single point, then EVERY SHOOTER in the line is awarded one point, so the maximum potential duration of the finals is 12 series, which it took.
...

Thank you for that clarification. So what happens at the end of the 12 series? If everyone has 7 points, how do they decide the winner? Yes I know this is unlikely, and all it would take is 1x10.3 to win. But I am curious as to what the rules say would happen in this unlikely scenario.

-trinity

[j-team]

For the benefit of the OP, the rules state that if no shooter in a series gets a single point, then EVERY SHOOTER in the line is awarded one point, so the maximum potential duration of the finals is 12 series, which it took.

Well, not quite. If after the first 5 series in the preliminary stage there is a tie, those tied shooters carry on until the tie is broken.

And, in the medal duels, if as Trinity has mentioned, both shooters arrive at 7 points at the same time, they also keep shooting additional series until the tie is broken.

So, potentially an endless final.

[David Levene]

.... and a late shot is penalized by -1 hit.

Are you sure about that?

[David M]

.... and a late shot is penalized by -1 hit.

This is for Rapidfire , no late shot rule in 25m pistol.
(unless the book has been amended yet again....)

[David Levene]

.... and a late shot is penalized by -1 hit.

This is for Rapidfire , no late shot rule in 25m pistol.
(unless the book has been amended yet again....)

That's my point :-)

It makes sense in RFP but not in 25mP.

[Joakim]

I'm not all that fond of hit-and-miss scoring, for three reasons:
* It doesn't scale naturally between different levels of shooting. The 9.7 and 10.3 hit zones are (obviously) meant for world-class shooters; using them for lesser competitions seems like a bit of a lottery, and can even get ridiculous for the spectators, as pointed out by renzo. I think the rules do allow for adjusting the hit zone size (or at least I think the provisional RFP rules did so), but then someone has to decide, for each competition, what's best, which is messy.
* It increases the likelihood of a final being decided before the last shot has been fired. There should definitely not be any more shooting at the point when the medallists have already been decided. That's the time for spontaneous celebrations (if we shooters know what that means).
* It seems to lead the TV graphics people into believing that the biathlon-style hit-and-miss graphics (which in themselves are fine) can somehow replace actually showing where on the target the hits landed. (Again, compare with biathlon, where the development has gone the other way, and now it's common with closeups showing the bullets hitting the plates.)

I think 25m works best with full-point scoring (by all means, keep the decimals in the 10m and 50m finals). Apart from the hit-and-miss though, I really like the new format, but both 25m finals would certainly be even better if the ISSF had gone the full one-on-one elimination path (like in archery).

I'm a bit surprised that nobody has yet mentioned what I feel is by far the biggest problem with the new SP rules: the winner is decided by rapid-fire shooting, but for some inexplicable reason you have to shoot precision and rapid-fire to qualify for the final. It's a bit like swimming heats in 200m individual medley to qualify for the Olympic 200m butterfly final. I think this is symptomatic of a mentality still extant in the shooting world that the qualifications are the real competition, and the finals are just there for show. Certainly, if the finals only include rapid-fire series, then so should the qualifications. (The RFP final suffers from the same problem, but the difference between 8/6/4-second shooting and just 4-second shooting is not quite as large. Still, I can't really see why you can't shoot the final in 8/6/4, giving it the same flavour as the qualification stages.)

and maybe reducing the 3-P format to two 5-shot series in kneeling and prone, one 5 series in standing and then the last five shots standing like it is in the rules as of today.

At the very least, it would be interesting to know why they don't think 30 shots would be enough for a fair 3-P final, while they think 20 shots are plenty for the prone. Sounds backwards to me.

It's the only match/final where "start from zero" happens twice.

The only pistol (or rifle) final, but it's the same way for all the shotgun events.

It will be interesting what changes are made between now and the 2016 Olympics.

Oh yes! These rules seem to come with a huge red "TEST! Subject to change!" written all over them. :)

[ghostrip]

we tried it at our nationals with paper targets. for me as a spectator it was a failure. at some point there was a tie and the girls were so tired they had to do 11 5shot rounds to clear the tie.
the rf final went much better (again paper targets with printed line for 9.7) and it had more flow. as a result it was more enjoyable.

[renzo]

To be honest, I really can't understand why a 10.3 floor for defining the hit-miss zone in WSP.

I read some other people devised a template to score the shots, and we're going to give the idea a try, but it would be quite as difficult and mucho more easier for us judges to qualify any "ten" as a hit.

After all, there's a white line we could use..............................

[trinity]

.... and a late shot is penalized by -1 hit.

This is for Rapidfire , no late shot rule in 25m pistol.
(unless the book has been amended yet again....)

That's my point :-)

It makes sense in RFP but not in 25mP.

Oh boy, more confusion. My original information about the -1 penalty came from Zorana Arunovic. But she could've been wrong too.

-trinity

[Fortitudo Dei]

Oh boy, more confusion

I think I was about three posts into this thread before my brain exploded.

[john bickar]

Oh boy, more confusion

I think I was about three posts into this thread before my brain exploded.

Once I got to the part where everyone started at zero and shot 60 shots to decide a winner, I immediately time-traveled directly to 1984.

[Joakim]

By the way (and just to toot my own dead horse beating skill horn), is this new SP final the first time in the modern era that the ISSF rifle/pistol rules require a shooter to move to a new firing point without getting extra sighting shots? Are there any concerns with this, such as uneven lighting or poorly calibrated ESTs?