Looking back at the Olympics

[gn303]

The Olympics are over. Maybe time to look back at the shooting disciplines.

In earlier mails I noticed the comment of David Levine saying that we should be happy that we were still allowed to 15 disciplines. Davids' career in the sport and as an official is well known, his observations are to be considered. A comment of a Belgian TV-reporter on the gender issue was much criticized and I'll leave it for what it is. But it made me wonder why in shooting we still have separate competitions for men and women? It's the same distance, the same number of shots, men or women alike, they all use the same type of gun. And yet we're organizing 'mixed team events'. Why does ISSF not away with all that mess and just open the competition to all and re-introduce the Free Pistol. I've all ways felt the 50 m Pistol the most sportive of all pistol disciplines. I wasn't good at it, but I loved the challenge. If I remember well the gender issue was one of the elements that removed FP of the ISSF competitions.
Looking forward to your remarks and ideas.

[David Levene]

But it made me wonder why in shooting we still have separate competitions for men and women?

Th IOC hate Open events. Mixed teams are OK because there is an equality of medals.

Apart from equestrian, where the horses play such a large part, I can't think of any other Olympic sport that is Open (but I could be wrong).

[Brazos]

My daughter and I talked about this. She shoots for her HS team. It’s quite obvious there is no disadvantage in the 3P & 10M Air (the events she competes in) between men & women. In fact there are 9 girls on her team and 3 boys. We came to the conclusion that being separated is better as there is more opportunity to win medals. You also get the bonus of the mixed 10M. Had it not been for that Mary Tucker & Luke K. would have left Japan empty handed. They are two of the best in the world thru a lot of hard work and talent. With the Olympics only coming around every 4 years I am glad they had a second chance at a medal and got one. No doubt though these events could be combined. Hopefully women competitors don’t take it as an insult they are separated because they are inferior in some way. If I had it my way it would stay the same but then give separate medals for the overall high scores between men & women after qualifications scores are posted. I think that would be a real honor and another opportunity for a hard working, talented, shooters to score a medal and inject some competition between the men & women.

[Hemmers]

The IOC hate Mixed Individual - Equestrian being the exception to the rule for historic reasons.

Whichever way you cut it, an Open individual event will not have an even gender split from 3 medallists. The IOC don't want the possibility of an all-men or all-women final. Heck, they'd probably want you to fudge the quota system pretty hard to ensure there was reasonable split in Quali.

With Men's and Women's events, they guarantee the same number of medallists.

I suspect there is also a soft-political play here as well. You can well imagine that certain parts of the world would treat an Open event as a Men's event (cough Saudi cough). By having separate medal events they encourage countries to both allow and support Women's programmes. If it was purely Open, they'd just try to fill their places with men. You could tweak that a bit by stating that although each NOC could enter two athletes you had to have one of each, but still - they're sending a message that countries who suppress women's rights will be unable to enter 50% of events.

That sort of thing isn't immediately a concern to us in the West where women turn up and regularly whup the boys in competition and it makes sense to run events Open. But in many parts of the world women haven't been allowed to turn up in the first place until relatively recently. My perception is that the IOC see themselves as acting to promote participation, which includes acting against those gender barriers.

[Pat McCoy]

My perception is that the IOC see themselves as acting to promote participation, which includes acting against those gender barriers.

Your perception may have some validity today, but you have to understand the history that lead to separate women's shooting event that began in 1976 when Silver Medalist Margaret Murdoch stood on the podium with Gold Medalist (by an X) Lanny Basham. The European shooting world was aghast.

[SPPcoach]

1992 in Barcelona, a woman won the shotgun event competing against the men.
Scuttlebut was that several latin and middle east countries threatened to boycot if the events were not seperated by gender.

[Tim S]

Your perception may have some validity today, but you have to understand the history that lead to separate women's shooting event that began in 1976 when Silver Medalist Margaret Murdoch stood on the podium with Gold Medalist (by an X) Lanny Basham. The European shooting world was aghast.

I've heard this, but is there any contemporary account, especially from a European perspective? I'm sure some shooters were annoyed to be beaten by a woman, but by 1976 wasn't Margaret Murdoch already well established as an International competitor? Hadn't she won medals in the 3x40 at the World Championships already? It wasn't as if she was a total unknown who popped up out of the blue.

I have in mind that Nonka Matova placed well in the 3x40 at the Moscow Olympics, not in the medals, but top 8/finalist under the current rules. Clearly European shooters weren't all so outraged by Margaret Murdoch at the '76 games, that they immediately took action to prevent a recurrence.

[Hemmers]

My perception is that the IOC see themselves as acting to promote participation, which includes acting against those gender barriers.

Your perception may have some validity today, but you have to understand the history that lead to separate women's shooting event that began in 1976 when Silver Medalist Margaret Murdoch stood on the podium with Gold Medalist (by an X) Lanny Basham. The European shooting world was aghast.

Oh certainly - and yes, I'm very familiar with the sexism that has gone before - with Margaret Murdoch in rifle and Zhang Shan winning the Open Skeet in Barcelona '92, after which the shotgun events became gendered. Whether it was the European shooting world that was aghast is up for debate. The first female winner of the Queen's Prize at Bisley was Marjorie Foster - in 1930. We didn't split the Queen's into Men's and Women's. A gentle tag of "citation needed" might reasonably be required.

Granted in the UK we also have the embarrassing history of the English Football Association closing down Women's football from 1921-1971, expressing:

the strong opinion that the game of football is quite unsuitable for females and should not be encouraged

The FA went on to claim it was injurious to women's health, despite a deafening silence when asked for evidence of the terrible health risks. The reality of course was that the Women's matches were drawing huge crowds and the FA believed it was starving the Men's teams of spectators and sponsorship - follow the money, nothing changes! Outside of wartime entertainments (when the fit men were off fighting), women had no place being professional athletes.

Today's decisions however do need to be viewed in light of today's circumstances, whilst being mindful of the historical context. And today's circumstances do push towards the IOC being very keen to strong-arm certain regimes (cough, Afghanistan, cough, Saudi) into allowing Women's sports.

[SPPcoach]

The FA went on to claim it was injurious to women's health, despite a deafening silence when asked for evidence of the terrible health risks.
Outside of wartime entertainments (when the fit men were off fighting), women had no place being professional athletes.

At the time of the winter games in Montreal I recall the Olympic officials defending the decision at a press conference on TV to not allow women to compete in the long jump because it would be damaging to their reproductive organs.
They were denying women the opportunity to compete out of chivalry. Awe, how sweet . . . and complete bull$#!+