ISSF & Prone

[Moore]

Read someplace tonight that prone 50m is being looked at for elimination????????

[Ulrich Eichstädt]

look here: http://www.targettalk.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=52162

[matchguy]

It's in section 9.1. Can't select it to paste it but it concludes since prone is dependant on the quality of equipment vs skill of the shooter, it could be eliminated since prone is already in 3p.

If that's the case, why then don't they just eliminate it in 3p as well.

Are they also trying to say Olympic level shooters don't have as good equipment as the person next to them?

Sounds like there's more to their reasoning than the description they've given.

[Moore]

Are they also trying to say Olympic level shooters don't have as good equipment as the person next to them?.[/quote]

In part I think thats what some are saying. From talking with a few of the shooters, it seems more of the "spread" if you will occurred when those tenths of points started adding up in full point totals.... As I'm sure we can all agree more accurate rifles produce more Xs, prior to that a rough clean ten target was better then a few deep X targets with some 9s tossed in...

[conradin]

I think it implies that in prone you need more equipment, than 3P or AR. As far as I can tell from regulations, there is nothing that a 3P competitor cannot add what a prone competitor can do. The regulations for rifle itself is the same. Maybe in reality the prone shooter uses a different tuning tube? Correctly me please.

[Modena]

What they are saying is that equipment in prone is making to much difference - there is not enough skill level and hence skill differentiation involved. You can see this by how many inner tens are hit constantly. It's to easy to stay still enough to hit an inner ten (if you know what you are doing).

What they need to do is make it harder to hit the high scores. It is currently to easy for a well experienced shooter with top level equipment to hit inner tens all the time.

To make it harder I guess they could change the target or alter the distance, or restrict equipment somehow, although I dont really see how you could enforce a "less accurate" rifle!

[j-team]

To make it harder I guess they could change the target or alter the distance, or restrict equipment somehow, although I dont really see how you could enforce a "less accurate" rifle!

Easy, take away the jackets and slings!

Honestly though, prone rifle is chosen for elimination maybe because it's by far the most boring shooting event on the program. A shooter could die during a match and no one would notice!

BTW, yes, I'm pistol shooter but I have shot prone, both indoor and outdoor.

[jbshooter]

To make it harder they should remove/ban the rear sight. Front sight only. This would bring shooter skill to the forefront and displace technical sophistication of equipment.

[methosb]

I read it as meaning that there is too big a gap between competitive and non-competitive equipment in prone, so much so that a great shooters would find it very difficult to overcome that gap with skill, hence must shell out big $ to be competitive. I don't know how true that really is but you can see that the majority of those in the finals nowadays are using the highest end equipment ie. Bleiker.

Maybe this was not as much of a big deal when you only had to get 10s, now you have to get good 10s with the decimal scoring. Which is where Bleiker / G&E / custom gear that has been matched to specific ammunition starts pulling away from the pack.

3P would also be less of an issue due it not being scored in decimal yet and due to standing and kneeling being much less stable positions so maybe those great skill can probably overcome the equipment disadvantage.

Anyway I don't think this is the real issue they are considering getting rid of prone. I think the issue is more about not wanting to deal with the IOC on the issue of women not having a prone event ie. they can't add more athletes (to create a women only prone event) and they don't want to make it a mixed event (which would solve the issue).

[Modena]

personally I think all ISSF events should be mixed gender.

How about they delete BYO ammo, and provide everyone with ammo from the same control batch on the day.

[David Levene]

personally I think all ISSF events should be mixed gender.

Which would be fine apart from when you consistently only had 1 or 2 women (or men) in the final.

[conradin]

personally I think all ISSF events should be mixed gender.

Which would be fine apart from when you consistently only had 1 or 2 women
(or men) in the final.

I don't really want to get into this thread since I just want to post this report...

but I did a little fact checking in the other thread about mixing in this thread.

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=52162

"The only Olympic program that can be used to compare men and women as close as possible is prone 50m. The only difference is that mens free rifle has an extra 1.5kg for maximum weight limit. In 2014WCH, FR60PR: 632.3, 627.7, 626.9(104.6), 626.9(103.5), 626.2, 625.7, 625.5, 625.3. STR60PR, it was 626.9, 625.4, 624.7(104.5), 624.5(103.8), 624.0(104.1), 623.7(103.0), 623.6(105.2), 623.6(103.0). Beate Gauss would have won a bronze. A potential mixed final of 7 men and 1 woman. If anything, that extra 1.5kg would give the men an advantage. 625.4 (3rd women) would ended up as 8th in men, 624.7 (3rd in women) would be 13th, 624.5 (4th in women) would be 17th, 624.0(5th in women) would be 22nd, 623.7 & 623.6(105.2)(6th & 7th in women) would be 28th, 623.6(103.0) (8th in women) would be 29th. In fact, to make the actual men's qualification you would need to score 618.5, so any of the top 34 women could have knocked the last man out. If we mixed them together, then for the 63 qualifying spot, it would have been 40 men and 23 women with a cut off of 620.1(103.9). Hardly lopsided! The cut off for women was 613.5 (102.1), and only the top 89 men would make that cut."

If you are asking for 4 women in the final in order to be fair, there is no way to know until we really allow it to happen . If we base on the domestic college shooting scene in the US which has always been mixed for years, men actually have been constantly beaten. So really we have to potentially ask if mixing is fair if you are willing to accept women finishing 3, 4, 5, 7, 8 in a final. This is an extremely competitive scene with plenty of international world cup winners, such as Zublasing, Campriani, Emmons, Junghänel...just about anyone who wants a US College education and take advantage of a rifle scholarship.

[Ulrich Eichstädt]

If you are asking for 4 women in the final in order to be fair, there is no way to know until we really allow it to happen.

This won't happen, for sure. It's not about a quota for female shooters 4:4 in the final, it's about a final with the top eight scorers of the qualification regardless their gender.

That's easier to organize in shooting (and still "fair") in comparizon to soccer, swimming, rowing or wrestling.

And there is no doubt, that the IOC switch from disciplines to "events" plays an important role. The chosen "clothing" of female beatch volleyball players is surely not because its better from technical reasons...

And what happens during a prone competition? You are always tempted to check, if they are still alive or already silently been killed by a hidden leak in a gas pipe. Nothing the media would like to broadcast life...

[Modena]

If you are asking for 4 women in the final in order to be fair, there is no way to know until we really allow it to happen.

This won't happen, for sure. It's not about a quota for female shooters 4:4 in the final, it's about a final with the top eight scorers of the qualification regardless their gender.

spot on!

I support EQUALITY, not quotas. Qualification should be open to all, and whomever qualifies for the finals, so be it, regardless if it's 8 of one sex, 4 of each, 7:1, whatever. If the qualification is open then what could be fairer?

[David Levene]

If you are asking for 4 women in the final in order to be fair, there is no way to know until we really allow it to happen.

This won't happen, for sure. It's not about a quota for female shooters 4:4 in the final, it's about a final with the top eight scorers of the qualification regardless their gender.

spot on!

I support EQUALITY, not quotas. Qualification should be open to all, and whomever qualifies for the finals, so be it, regardless if it's 8 of one sex, 4 of each, 7:1, whatever. If the qualification is open then what could be fairer?

But when performance levels between the genders are unequal, possibly because of strength/stamina, how can that be fair. It's like suggesting a mixed 100m in track & field.
If you were to look at Air Pistol at the last 3 World Cups, comparing the AP40 with the first 40 shots of the AP60, only 5 of the 24 finalists would have been women.
At the last Olympics there wouldn't have been any women in the final.

[conradin]

But when performance levels between the genders are unequal, possibly because of strength/stamina, how can that be fair. It's like suggesting a mixed 100m in track & field.
If you were to look at Air Pistol at the last 3 World Cups, comparing the AP40 with the first 40 shots of the AP60, only 5 of the 24 finalists would have been women.
At the last Olympics there wouldn't have been any women in the final.

David it is not fair to compare men's first 40 shots and then compare that with women's entire match. Women probably never would train as if they were prepared to shoot for 60 if they were not expected to do so, but if they were allowed to do so, they would probably change their routine. Here in the US, where the Collegiate pistol is also mixed, women also outshoot men, 60 shots.

But for fact checking sake, let's look at the WCH 2014 on air rifle. WCH is the best way to compare because unlike WC, everyone shows up. Also it is more recent than the 2012 Olympics.

Men top 16 after 40 shots are:
(421.6 419.1 418.7 418.1 418.8 417.4 418.7 417.7) 418.1 416.8 416.2 415.8 415.0 414.7 416.4 415.4.
Women top 16:
(418.3 418.1 418.0 416.4 418.6 416.9 419.3 420.8) 416.3 416.3 416.2 416.0 415.6 415.4 415.2 415.0
This means the 9th placed man at the time of the 40th shot would have been potentially at 417.4, which means he would also BARELY make it to the women's final at 7th. In fact, the 11th man after 40th shot at 416.2 would not make it to the women's final. Mix them up, we will have 5 men and 3 women with women qualifying at 2nd, 3rd, and 8th. Finally notice that the 16th man has the same score as the 16th woman, at 415.0

For the finals, if we look at the 5 men and 3 women after the first elimination shots, it would be: Ayonika 80.9 Engleder 81.4 Arsovic 82.4 Yang 83.3 Bubnovich 81.3 Liu 80.1 Louginets 84.4 Kim 80.1. Yup, TWO men would be having a shoot off to see who get eliminated. If we take the next two shots, we would have Engleder 101.7 Arsovic 102.6 Yang 103.3 Bubnovich 101.8 Lougenits 104.7 Kim 101.1, with another man, Kim, eliminated as in real life, Ayonika, would not have been able to take the 10th shot. If we count all 16 people in the finals in real life, men would have shot 83.3 84.4 81.3 82.8 82.3 82.3 80.1 80.1, women 81.6 82.4 82.7 81.5 82.4 81.9 81.4 80.9 with two men at the bottom. In any case, at the end Men were 207.9 206.0 women were 207.1 206.8 So women would finished with Silver & Bronze.

You can make your own conclusion from these data at this point....

[David Levene]

But when performance levels between the genders are unequal, possibly because of strength/stamina, how can that be fair. It's like suggesting a mixed 100m in track & field.
If you were to look at Air Pistol at the last 3 World Cups, comparing the AP40 with the first 40 shots of the AP60, only 5 of the 24 finalists would have been women.
At the last Olympics there wouldn't have been any women in the final.

David it is not fair to compare men's first 40 shots and then compare that with women's entire match. Women probably never would train as if they were prepared to shoot for 60 if they were not expected to do so, but if they were allowed to do so, they would probably change their routine. Here in the US, where the Collegiate pistol is also mixed, women also outshoot men, 60 shots.

But for fact checking sake, let's look at the WCH 2014 on air rifle. WCH is the best way to compare because unlike WC, everyone shows up. Also it is more recent than the 2012 Olympics.

Are you saying that the women aren't training to get the best score they can in 40 shots. If anything it would be the men who would possibly shoot better if they only had to fire 40 shots.

It is obvious that performances in AR are closer, but Modena wrote "personally I think all ISSF events should be mixed gender".

[Tim S]

Thinking of 3-P smallbore, I totted up the scores from the first 20 shots of each position in the men's 3 x 40 and compared them to the 3 x 20. Of the eight men's finalists, six would have made a joint final.

[David Levene]

I don't know why we're talking about mixed events, and I admit that I'm as bad as anyone.

It's not going to happen.

Mixed team events maybe, but not mixed individual.

[Moore]

personally I think all ISSF events should be mixed gender.

How about they delete BYO ammo, and provide everyone with ammo from the same control batch on the day.

I will SECOND that........ ole backwoods country side shooting matchs have worked that way for years......