Sweidish Sport letter on gender proposals! excellent read

[pilkguns]

http://www.skyttesport.se/globalassets/ ... hanges.pdf

[SlartyBartFast]

A far better response than the petitions that were created.

I'm not so sure the mixed gender is a good idea. Not until there are women in equal numbers competing at the same level as men. And the suggestion of teams and mixed gender will get heavy resistance from the IOC as they enforce limits on the total number of participants.

At least the Swedes see the obvious and address a point I've made in many threads. If 50m prone being in the Olympics is so critical to men, why is it so unimportant to women? And if it is important to women, where is the push to include them. Calling for a mixed event addresses that. But does comparing the world cup scores for women and men in 50m over the last few years point to an equal spread of results and equal probability of medals or does the probability point to the top positions being male dominated?

The point is to encourage participation. Women watching the Olympics won't be encouraged to participate in a male dominated competition. There's also the backwards nature of so many countries that won't compete in mixed gender events. First have to get their women competing, then get them competing at world class, then battle the gender division.

I think much of the exact same wording could be used to draft a letter to the ISSF to change all rules for all disciplines to have all disciplines have mixed or both genders.

[sparky]

It's a smarter proposal, but ultimately, when it comes to gender, the IOC (and thus ISSF) wants equality of outcome, not equality of opportunity. Having events open to both sexes that have 80% male competitors, with 90% of the medals going to men wouldn't work for them.

[renzo]

A far better response than the petitions that were created.

You have a point here, as theoretically it´s much better as an well thought and expressed collaboration.

Practically, it will mean nothing, as the ISSF lets the rumour slip under the door when the decision is already made.

And besides, I think those who are in command must be aware of the anger they arise (as if they'd care) as well of the calm advices they are given.

Anyway, in a short time we´ll know how much does the ISSF give about it.

Frankly, I don´t know how I´ll manage to buy you a beer from so far if you turn out to be right!!!

Greetings from Argentina

[Gort]

I can understand the IOC wanting to eliminate shooting events, they are a political organization, but not the ISSF. The ISSF should be the protector of ALL of its members, not throwing any discipline under the bus. I find it repugnant that we are whipsawing one event against another, our goal should be the survival of ALL of our disciplines. I don't care who participates, their abilities should dictate, not gender. Lets strive to keep all of our shooting events.
Gort

[Chia]

*clap clap*

Great letter. I hope this gets adopted.

And I hope that other federations stand up for their athletes as well. Silence speaks just as loud as words.

[hundert]

mixed team competitions are boring to watch (European Championship mixed 10m air pistol is on youtube), I'd love to participate though hehe

[David Levene]

I cannot see how the Swedish proposals for rifle and pistol will "achieve 50 per cent female participation in the Olympic Games" as required by recommendation 11.1 of Agenda 2020.

[jhmartin]

... The ISSF should be the protector of ALL of its members, not throwing any discipline under the bus. ...

The ISSF has the agenda put in their minds and they are not going to change their minds.
3-P Air is coming folks...... (and I don't like it either...)

[SlartyBartFast]

I can understand the IOC wanting to eliminate shooting events,

Would be really nice if people stopped saying that. The number of shooting events is staying the same.

The ISSF should be the protector of ALL of its members, not throwing any discipline under the bus.

And I'll say what I've said in other threads. No one has given a single care or concern over the fact the oh-so-critical for sport development 50m prone has been unavailable to women in the Olympics forever.

And there won't be more events added. So are 300M, RT and all the other ISSF events being thrown under the bus if the ISSF isn't fighting to have them in the Olympics?

I don't care who participates, their abilities should dictate, not gender.

It's so easy for men to sit around and complain about "gender shouldn't matter" when women are currently excluded, and have less opportunity to compete in fewer disciplines.

All the men on this forum owe the women of the sport the decency to wake up and to start eliminating the gender bias in ISSF events. All events should have men's and women's competition. Once numbers and skill are equal, mixed gender competition at international levels might finally be feasible.

Some rather simple facts: The Olympics will NEVER have all ISSF events. The Olympics (and ISSF) are divided by gender. The IOC has declared that there needs to be as many women's competitions as men's competitions.

With those facts, there are alternative solutions to the ones arrived at by the ISSF or proposed by the Swedes. But any alternative must accept those facts.

[jhmartin]

All the men on this forum owe the women of the sport the decency to wake up and to start eliminating the gender bias in ISSF events.

I'm pretty sure that you are preaching to the choir here. And you are approaching this (as I do) from a "western" point of view. It is not (I don't think) ISSF that has a gender bias, per se, but A LOT of the individual federations that cannot stand to have women compete directly with men that has put ISSF in the situation as it stands now.
And, as it stands now they are in a reactive mode rather than a creative pro-active mode. They got themselves behind this 8-ball and really have no clue how to get out in front of the issue.

A solution to have an equal number of events split between men & women, and thus making the medals count even was simple years ago and they biffed it.

[David Levene]

Some rather simple facts: The Olympics will NEVER have all ISSF events. The Olympics (and ISSF) are divided by gender. The IOC has declared that there needs to be as many women's competitions as men's competitions.

With those facts, there are alternative solutions to the ones arrived at by the ISSF or proposed by the Swedes. But any alternative must accept those facts.

Some more facts:-

The IOC owns the Olympics. You play by their rules or you don't play at all.

The IOC decides which events, if any, are in the Olympics.

At the moment it looks like the ISSF will be able to retain 15 shooting events in the Olympics, even though that is not guaranteed. That is surely an indication that the IOC do NOT want to remove shooting from the Olympics.

[jhmartin]

Some more facts:-

The IOC owns the Olympics. You play by their rules or you don't play at all.

The IOC decides which events, if any, are in the Olympics.

At the moment it looks like the ISSF will be able to retain 15 shooting events in the Olympics, even though that is not guaranteed. That is surely an indication that the IOC do NOT want to remove shooting from the Olympics.

David ... the only word I have contention with is "retaining". They are certainly not "retaining" 15 events ... they are tossing a few of them and reworking to a more "PC" set of events. After Tokyo, I expect a few more tossing and reworking to an entirely different set of events.

They are not retaining the events......

[SlartyBartFast]

They are not retaining the events......

They're keeping the same number of events. And whether you think air events are "PC" or not is irrelevant. They are ISSF sanctioned and popular worldwide.

Being biased against a shooting event because it's "PC" is as sad and pathetic IMO as the bias and derision I get from shooters who consider .22 unworthy of "real" shooting.

The IOC has given the ISSF a number of events to fill and the conditions that need to be met. Complaining that things won't stay the same is a waste of time. They're going to anger some group of shooters no matter what change is made.

Unless you have a constructive idea as to how to address the issues.

[jhmartin]

They are ISSF sanctioned and popular worldwide.

Not sure they are sanctioned as we have no rules for a few of the events yet.

You are correct that comments now are not useful.
Constructive ideas have no place as this was determined by an "adhoc" panel.
All that really can be done is to voice frustration that this was not a decision that was made with comments beforehand.

And that is the basis of the frustration with the ISSF ... for "adhoc" event selection, and off the cuff rule changes. Constructive ideas are/were not solicited.

[SlartyBartFast]

Not sure they are sanctioned as we have no rules for a few of the events yet.

I was talking about the "PC" air events that you seem to think are beneath being considered "shooting" events.

And I didn't say comments weren't useful. Complaining about "PC" issues and how unfair it is that we can't have all the shooing disciplines in the Olympics is what is unhelpful.

Given 15 event slots, having to be gender balanced, and having a limit on number of participants, how would YOU reorganise the events and what is included and what isn't?

[jhmartin]

Not sure they are sanctioned as we have no rules for a few of the events yet.

I was talking about the "PC" air events that you seem to think are beneath being considered "shooting" events.

And I didn't say comments weren't useful. Complaining about "PC" issues and how unfair it is that we can't have all the shooing disciplines in the Olympics is what is unhelpful.

Given 15 event slots, having to be gender balanced, and having a limit on number of participants, how would YOU reorganise the events and what is included and what isn't?

Sorry .... did not mean to imply that the events were "beneath" the shooting crowd. Should imply that the 25m & 50m events are going away to include more air events .... except for SG, air (or laser ... that IS PC) is the future of the Olympic shooting sports.

How I or anyone else would re-organize is clearly a moot point ... the decision has been made.

[SlartyBartFast]

Sorry .... did not mean to imply that the events were "beneath" the shooting crowd. Should imply that the 25m & 50m events are going away to include more air events .... except for SG, air (or laser ... that IS PC) is the future of the Olympic shooting sports.

How I or anyone else would re-organize is clearly a moot point ... the decision has been made.

For someone that shoots @50m, yeah the 10m event sure is different. But what skills are different? Those different skills have to made apparent to the audience if the sport is going to survive as a spectator driven sport.

And I have to admit, from a spectators point of view besides the bang what is the skill difference between a perfect X with a laser and a perfect X with a cartridge fire weapon?

I personally don't think it's a moot point to push the gender issues. IMO it's the fact that shooting has failed to become gender inclusive and been happy to have free pistol men only and treat women's shooting as second rate that led to the difficulty in balancing the events in the first place.

If the ISSF had balanced events themselves long ago, there might have been 16 events with 8 mens and 8 womens medal events. That would still mean dropping a men's event (or there would have to be 18 Olympic events).

I've made a chart of the men's vs. women's ISSF events and it's hard to understand or justify the differences. The ISSF had to get it's house in order and encourage equal competition for men and women.

And it may be too late to reconsider the re-organising of events for the next Olympics, but it's not too late for the Olympics after that.

[97nick]

I think the gender thing is just a white elephant. the reason the ISSF and IOC want to get rid of 50m events is cost.

[David Levene]

I think the gender thing is just a white elephant. the reason the ISSF and IOC want to get rid of 50m events is cost.

Then why are they supporting the 3-Positional Rifle events.