ISSF rule change from 1st January 2013

[Russ]

I do not have any connections with ISSF, but what was done is common sense and I respect that!

[Sparks]

I do not have any connections with ISSF

Took the words right out of my mouth.

[Russ]

I'm not even USAS shooting member sice 2007, so what?
I do not practice since 2007 national. :)
I have my NRA credentials current if it is important to you. ;)

[bpscCheney]

Every time I see a post by Russ I automatically assume that a fight will break out now. Keep it polite now. :)

[Muffo]

People are afraid of change. Why don't we go back to the original rules and shoot it in 24 hours

[Sparks]

Posted elsewhere by Jen McIntosh (shot for TeamGB in the London Games), posted with permission:

Ok, so some of what I'm about to say may upset some people but it's my opinion, based on my experiences so I don't expect everyone to like it or agree with it. Say what you will but the following are my thoughts on the matter. (I'm also not going to comment on Pistol/Shotgun since I know nothing about them).

1. Range scoreboards/internet service. Awesome idea. Definitely a way of bringing the sport into the 21st century... but I think it says a lot about the people in charge that it's taken them this long to think this up.

2. Sighting time. I actually think this could be made to work and I can see the logic behind it. My only question is how they're going to make it work in 3P. I would not object to them splitting it so that you had prep/sighting time and then x amount of time to shoot each position (kind of like how the guys do it). Although I like being able to just get on with my match, I can see that the way the men's 3P is currently shot makes it easier to follow for spectators.

3. Ties. Glad they got rid of the shoot off. It was just an added complication to an already complicated sport. Although it was fun and added an extra element, they're right - it's difficult to schedule and therefore difficult to prepare for as an athlete.

4. Rifle rules. Thankfully, these are just a summary so we can't expect to understand exactly what they're on about because they're pretty much gibberish at the moment. But depending on the interpretation there could be some major (and expensive) problems in this. Vibration reduction system. At best, people will have to get rid of some accessories. At worst, almost every air rifle and a number of the stocks currently on the market are illegal. Could be very expensive. Air rifle pistol grip. Once again, the ISSF are proven to be run solely by old men. I had to ask myself if any of them have every actually looked at a woman when I read this rule. We have these things called breasts and while I'm very attached to mine, they do have a tendency to just get in the way. And I'm not that well endowed. I hate to think of the problems larger chested women are going to have if this rule comes in to play - it's not like they're detachable. Chest rests. Well, there's an easy way round this. Old wooden stocks anyone? Pathetic attempt to meddle and hasn't been thought through at all. Clothing stiffness and thickness testing (minimum area measurement). This rule is going to suck if you're really small... great for getting juniors involved. Not. Normal walking test. Define normal. Morons. Shoe sole contour. So new boots for everyone. Manufacturers will be pleased. My bank balance won't be. Shooting jacket left side panel (for right handed shooter). So that's a new jacket to add to my new boots and new air rifle... except that with my figure, there's no way on this planet that I'm going to be able to get a jacket to fit me if there isn't a seam there. Once again, proof that the ISSF bigwigs have never seen a woman. We have these things called hips. Along with breasts, they make tailoring shooting jackets for us a bit of a challenge. Take out those seams and it's going to become damn near impossible. Time limits. Personally, I think that's great but that's because I shoot fast so I fully appreciate that other people might struggle with the new time limits... which, from a selfish point of view is awesome Overall, I feel like the changes to the rifle rules are the ISSF just tinkering because they can. There's no real need for any of it and as I've pointed out, it's going to cause major issues for women in particular as well as causing massive financial issues for everyone involved. Nobody benefits - not even manufacturers or dealers because they are going to be left with a whole load of stock that they're not going to be able to shift.

5. New finals rules. Now this could take a while. Firstly, I disagree completely with their reasoning. "Olympic sports today must become more dynamic, attract more fans, engage the public with more drama and provide great shows for youth, spectators, television and the media". I'm wondering if any members of the ISSF were actually at the London Olympic Games (I know they were, because I saw them... maybe they walked around with their eyes closed). In case they hadn't noticed, it was sold out. The venue was full. So there's clearly the potential there. Yes, media coverage could have been better. But I don't think it's got anything to do with the format of the matches. The broadcasters just don't have the knowledge or the experience to be able to show shooting in the best way. ISSF TV is going in the right direction but it's still missing something (maybe a commentator who knows what she's actually talking about). Now, I don't normally watch ISSF TV - most of the time, I don't need to see the finals again because I was in the range watching them live in the first place. But after I made the final in Munich, I decided to watch my final back again (the whole thing was a bit of a blur to me and my boyfriend had said that the commentary was good). So I sat down to watch it and low and behold, who was commentating but my good friend Petra Zublasing. Her commentary was brilliant. There was so much personality to it - she talked about the personalities of the shooters, their strengths and weaknesses (she was quite disparaging about my standing as well, if I remember correctly), their history (or lack of in my case). And that's when I realised what was missing. Personality. Because our sport is so introverted and so self-contained, to the outsider there's no personality in it. But there is. And that's why it's fun to watch finals if you're a shooter. Because you know the history and the personalities. And if you had a commentator who could pass that knowledge on to the spectators, it would become a lot more interesting.

But I've gone a bit off topic... the new finals format is unfair. Some people may think it's a great idea because it gives more opportunity to shooters who didn't do quite so well in the qualification. And as a shooter who has been in that position, I can understand the appeal. I'd have got bronze in Munich under the new rules. Sure, there was some element of skill involved in that, but I finished 2 points behind 3rd - not the 0.2 points I would have been ahead under the new rules. The best three shooters on the day won the medals. That's what it's all about. You're not good enough to win a medal by shooting a good qualification? You don't deserve a medal. Under the new rules, Nicco wouldn't even have medalled in London - despite shooting a score 8 points better than the guy in 2nd and 12 points better than the guy in 8th. Sport is about the best person winning. There's no two ways about that. And what the ISSF haven't realised, in the obsession with trying to attract media attention, is that they're making it even harder for grassroots sports. This new format of final demands to be shot on electronic targets which many clubs (and even some countries) don't have the facilities for. Much as we may like for there to be electronics in every club/range in the world, that just isn't the case and this rule would make the sport even less accessible to new shooters. Also, at domestic level, the gap between first and eighth can but much greater than the one or two points that you see at World Cups. But is it really fair that at a national championships, someone can go in ten, twenty or even thirty points in front and that count for nothing?

[url]http://www.petitiono...F/petition.html[/url]

I have signed this petition and I think it makes an interesting point.

"We as the shooters and coaches around the world, appreciate the effort of the ISSF in order to make shooting a better sport but at the same time we believe that such important decisions should not be taken without the agreement of the majority of shooters and coaches."

This is our sport and as such we should have a say in how it's run. I encourage anyone and everyone to sign this petition - or at least, to read the rather eloquent points made my Nicco and Rajmond. Ours is one of the oldest sports in the modern Olympics... let us try and keep the essence of it in tact

[Russ]

People are afraid of change. Why don't we go back to the original rules and shoot it in 24 hours

I'm with you Muffo.
I found this article is quite interesting regarding of fear of changes and psychological aspects of mind and body.
"Fear is not always a bad thing. It can be a positive emotion, promoting survival by leading us to cope with anticipated danger. Fear prevents us from exposing ourselves to undue hazards and prepares us to deal with surprise situations."
http://www.dtmag.com/Stories/Dive%20Psy ... eature.htm
"The Personal Limits of Fear."
Mind and Body
By Robert N. Rossier

What is our stress level in comparisons with divers constantly changing conditions? ;)

[Beevo]

@ fredb: no, its controlled by the spanish inquisition...

But nobody expects that!

Trooble at mill?

[Beevo]

Rapid fire final scoring "hit or miss"?...

Normal for me! ;)

[j-team]

Rapid fire final scoring "hit or miss"?...

Normal for me! ;)

Best comment so far!

[David Levene]

People are afraid of change.

I have been around long enough to remember the shock and horror when finals were introduced. "I've already won the 60 shot match; why should I now run the risk of losing it?"

Guess what, the world didn't end. All that happened was that the matches changed, and I'm sure they will change in the future.

[Muffo]

People are afraid of change.

I have been around long enough to remember the shock and horror when finals were introduced. "I've already won the 60 shot match; why should I now run the risk of losing it?"

Guess what, the world didn't end. All that happened was that the matches changed, and I'm sure they will change in the future.

well said

[Joakim]

Even though Jen McIntosh's comments were posted elsewhere, I thought I'd address some of them. Feel free to forward this.

2. Sighting time. I actually think this could be made to work and I can see the logic behind it. My only question is how they're going to make it work in 3P. I would not object to them splitting it so that you had prep/sighting time and then x amount of time to shoot each position (kind of like how the guys do it). Although I like being able to just get on with my match, I can see that the way the men's 3P is currently shot makes it easier to follow for spectators.

That's what I thought they would do, too—split the 3x20 up into prone sighters, prone match, standing sighters, standing match, kneeling sighters, kneeling match, each with its own time frame. But no, the proposal is very clear on this, it will go the other way around: 3x40 will be merged into one block. So for both 3x20 and 3x40, the prone sighting shots will not be included in the match time, but the standing and kneeling sighting shots will be.

While this is hardly a big issue, the ISSF are clouding exactly what they are trying to accomplish here, by making two seemingly contradictory rule changes. It's very much like four years ago, when they introduced inner tens as first tie-breaking, and at the same time—at the same time as they finally had a fair and reasonable way of determining who goes into the final and who doesn't—they decided not to use it to determine who goes into the final and who doesn't. Huh?? (Thankfully, this changes now.)

Yes, media coverage could have been better.

I think that, certainly at the Olympics, a big part of the problem is that the final is the only televisable part of a shooting competition. The Olympics are broadcast by national TV networks that generally (aside from the likes of Bolt and Phelps) want to show the athletes from their own countries as much as possible. This means that there will only be truly great potential for media interest in a shooting event in at most eight countries! I almost can't think of another Olympic sport where it is possible for an athlete to not compete in a televisable stage. (Tennis would be an exception, or at least it was at Wimbledon, where many matches were on lesser courts without TV equipment.)

This is what the archers have understood. After their ranking round (which is also truly untelevisable), all 64 proceed to the man-to-man eliminations. So for each country with an archer in the competition, there is something of national interest to show, even if it's just a round of 64 elimination match. For shooting, it's just a news item "Shooter so-and-so scored so-and-so many points in the qualification of event so-and-so, finishing so-and-so and missing the finals for the top eight". End of interest.

The "3x10 heats" have been suggested more or less jokingly here, but they may very well be the way to go.

ISSF TV is going in the right direction but it's still missing something (maybe a commentator who knows what she's actually talking about).

Oh, I can only agree. I watched some videos from the London Olympics (the ones on Youtube) and the commentary was just so much greater than the ones usually found on ISSF TV. Even when the TV producer failed epicly by moving away from the gold-medal action for shots 18 and 19 of the women's sport pistol, the commentator talked us through what happened in a wonderfully informed way.

the new finals format is unfair.

Hardly. There is nothing inherently unfair with not including qualification scores in the total, or every competition in swimming or track and field would be unfair. And we already have starting-at-zero. If someone should shoot 1187 for a phenomenal new world record in 3x40 at the eliminations of the world championships, he would have to prove again the next day that he's the best shooter. Following up with a 1166 would not make him world champion. Is that unfair?

If there is a problem with the new rules, it's not that the finals start from zero but rather that they contain fewer shots than the qualifications. This is what's unusual throughout the Olympic sports (although archery, again, has it). 20 shots might just be enough however. I'm kind of relieved that it's not less than that. (And then, per above, perhaps it's the qualifications that need revamping, by some kind of "heats" system.)

Under the new rules, Nicco wouldn't even have medalled in London - despite shooting a score 8 points better than the guy in 2nd and 12 points better than the guy in 8th.

As far as I'm concerned, we have no idea what score Nicco would have had in a 3x10 start-from-zero final. The 10-standing final he actually shot certainly has very little to do with that.

And what the ISSF haven't realised, in the obsession with trying to attract media attention, is that they're making it even harder for grassroots sports. This new format of final demands to be shot on electronic targets which many clubs (and even some countries) don't have the facilities for. Much as we may like for there to be electronics in every club/range in the world, that just isn't the case and this rule would make the sport even less accessible to new shooters.

10m finals with carriers won't be much of a problem. 50m finals without electronics certainly are a hassle, but they've always been. The number of times you have to go and score the final targets in free pistol and prone have risen from 10 to 16—which actually means less than 60% extra scoring time considering that many of these feature less than eight shooters. So that's clearly feasible. But yes, 3x10 will be much worse.

[Sparks]

Yes, media coverage could have been better.

I think that, certainly at the Olympics, a big part of the problem is that the final is the only televisable part of a shooting competition.

I think you have used the wrong word there. The finals are not the only televisable part of a shooting competition; they are the only televised part; and that is purely down to (in the US) NBC. Who, apparently, think so highly of the Olympics that they don't bother to show anything in realtime anyway, and apparently don't want to show the Paralympics at all.

Changing your sport to convince NBC to televise you isn't going to work any more than being polite to your mugger is going to save your wallet.

I almost can't think of another Olympic sport where it is possible for an athlete to not compete in a televisable stage. (Tennis would be an exception, or at least it was at Wimbledon, where many matches were on lesser courts without TV equipment.)

Firstly, you have to compare like with like. You can't look at events like judo or boxing and sports like shooting in the same comparison because the former are by nature very different from the latter. You have to work to get head-to-head matches into the shooting sports; you'd find it almost impossible to not have them with judo or the other, more martial sports.

Secondly, you can think of a lot of other successful sports where that is true. But I think the most illustrative example would be Golf. It's a man (or woman) knocking a little ball around a large field. Without incredible camerawork, you couldn't even see the ball, the swing would be a blur and the few putts that are slow enough to see and long enough to get an ooh or an aaah are uncommon enough. And yet, they televise it, they throw lots of technology at it, they have lots of commentators and hype and they *make* it televisable.

In other words, whether or not it shows up on TV is not a decision made on the televisability of the sport, but is the result of other factors. Us changing the sport to affect the decision is cargo cultism and little more.

This is what the archers have understood. After their ranking round (which is also truly untelevisable)

This is wrong on two counts and both are important to note. Firstly, the archers did not understand it; FITA pushed them into their current format on the grounds of making it more televisable and more popular and what happened? Do you see archery on primetime anywhere in the world today where it wasn't before the change?

Secondly, their seeding round is televisable. You can see them on the FITA youtube channel and if you have any interest in the sport, they're wonderful and if you're just looking for something different, they're interesting. And that's with very little money thrown at it, by comparison to what's thrown at the likes of Golf.

Archery's a great example of how massive changes to the sport don't do a damn thing to make it more popular.

the new finals format is unfair.

Hardly. There is nothing inherently unfair with not including qualification scores in the total, or every competition in swimming or track and field would be unfair.

That's not an accurate statement. In every competition in swimming, track and field, and other sports, you do not qualify in one sport and final in another. The 100m sprint finals are not run over 7m with elbowing allowed. They do not stop the marathon outside the stadium and have the fastest 8 runners sprint the last 400m for the medal. And if you qualify in the backstroke, you don't go for the medal by butterfly.

If you go into a shooting final ten points ahead of the pack, it's because you're the better shooter. Taking that away and forcing everyone to start from scratch is not going to find the best shooter on the day, it's going to be unfair to the best shooter. Which is the opposite to a fair competition's ethos.

Add to that the point that in some events like 50m Prone, you cannot tell who is the better shooter with just one or two shots because the event is right out on the edge of what we can manufacture in terms of firearms and ammunition. If your group size on an indoor range from a rest is 11mm edge-to-edge for a highly competitive rifle/ammo setup, then one shot could fall, completely at random, with no influence possible by the shooter, anywhere in that group size. It takes a lot of shots to build up a statistically accurate idea of who the best shooter is; and the proposed 2/3 shot shoot-offs is not sufficient. You could have two shooters with perfect hold and perfect technique in conditions with no wind and excellent equipment, and instead of identical scores, they would shoot different scores in a single shot. Only over many shots would it become obvious that they were equally matched.

Head-to-head elimination in the finals in these events is simply ignoring physics and reality. There's no nicer way to state it accurately.

10m finals with carriers won't be much of a problem.

I've run and helped run 10m finals at national level with carriers and manual scoring, for a few years in fact.
I don't agree that they'll be no problem at all. We always found it a slow, awkward, painful process that demanded a lot of manpower and expertise.

[Joakim]

I think you have used the wrong word there. The finals are not the only televisable part of a shooting competition; they are the only televised part; and that is purely down to (in the US) NBC.

I might have used the wrong word. When I said "televisable" (throughout the post) I did not mean any inherent property of the sport. I meant the existence of an actual TV production that networks can air. It's possible that NBC in the US were shooting their own footage, but I'm talking about the ones cabled out to any network that has signed a contract with the IOC. Apart from said tennis matches, the shooting qualifications (and probably the archery seeding round) are the only ones I know of that weren't available.

This is wrong on two counts and both are important to note. Firstly, the archers did not understand it; FITA pushed them into their current format on the grounds of making it more televisable and more popular and what happened? Do you see archery on primetime anywhere in the world today where it wasn't before the change?

Oh, yes! Only in the Olympics, of course, but I can't remember seeing Olympic archery before the change. (This may be because I was pretty young then, so it's quite possible that it was aired.)

That's not an accurate statement. In every competition in swimming, track and field, and other sports, you do not qualify in one sport and final in another. The 100m sprint finals are not run over 7m with elbowing allowed. They do not stop the marathon outside the stadium and have the fastest 8 runners sprint the last 400m for the medal. And if you qualify in the backstroke, you don't go for the medal by butterfly.

Yes, that's exactly the point: starting from zero is not the problem; if there is a problem, it's that the qualifications format and the finals format don't match.

Add to that the point that in some events like 50m Prone, you cannot tell who is the better shooter with just one or two shots because the event is right out on the edge of what we can manufacture in terms of firearms and ammunition. If your group size on an indoor range from a rest is 11mm edge-to-edge for a highly competitive rifle/ammo setup, then one shot could fall, completely at random, with no influence possible by the shooter, anywhere in that group size. It takes a lot of shots to build up a statistically accurate idea of who the best shooter is; and the proposed 2/3 shot shoot-offs is not sufficient. You could have two shooters with perfect hold and perfect technique in conditions with no wind and excellent equipment, and instead of identical scores, they would shoot different scores in a single shot. Only over many shots would it become obvious that they were equally matched.

This is a very good point. Actually, I had anticipated that trap shooters would be the most vehement opponents to this suggestion. Among shooters missing a target every 30-40 shots, it seems very haphazard to have a 15-shot final: whether you happen to miss a target during these 15 shots is just way too random. But yes, the problem exists in prone as well. How many shots (with decimals) do you think are needed to get a true measurement of skill in prone shooting? 30? 60? 90?

I've run and helped run 10m finals at national level with carriers and manual scoring, for a few years in fact.
I don't agree that they'll be no problem at all. We always found it a slow, awkward, painful process that demanded a lot of manpower and expertise.

I've shot quite a few such finals (AP) and assisted at a couple. Sure, they take decidedly longer time, but I never found them to be painful except when four finals were conducted simultaneously.

[Sparks]

This is wrong on two counts and both are important to note. Firstly, the archers did not understand it; FITA pushed them into their current format on the grounds of making it more televisable and more popular and what happened? Do you see archery on primetime anywhere in the world today where it wasn't before the change?

Oh, yes! Only in the Olympics, of course, but I can't remember seeing Olympic archery before the change. (This may be because I was pretty young then, so it's quite possible that it was aired.)

I think you're confusing "looks odd and we have airtime to fill" with "gosh, let's televise this because we can sell advertising space with it".
Simply put, you don't see archery on the TV except once every four years, and for a few minutes of edited footage at that point. It's not a success story, and it wasn't caused by the change in format.

Yes, that's exactly the point: starting from zero is not the problem; if there is a problem, it's that the qualifications format and the finals format don't match.

I don't agree. The format change creates two events out of one; the SFZ aspect is causing the finals and the qualification round to be completely distinct events. The two are different facets of the same problem. The SFZ is just the more immediately obviously nasty facet.

But yes, the problem exists in prone as well. How many shots (with decimals) do you think are needed to get a true measurement of skill in prone shooting? 30? 60? 90?

Honestly, we'd have to study it. This is a well known problem in statistics; but I'm not a statistician and neither are any of the ISSF committees :(
And it's not a trivial problem. I can tell you, based on an engineering degree, that 2-3 samples cannot give you an accurate picture, but we'd need to run a few hundred shots down a barrel in experiments to give an accurate number of shots that would be required.

I've shot quite a few such finals (AP) and assisted at a couple. Sure, they take decidedly longer time, but I never found them to be painful except when four finals were conducted simultaneously.

Our experiences differ; the process wasn't made less painful for us until one club here bought an electronic scoring machine and let it be used for all the national opens. Until that point, we had people who spent their time doing nothing but running the stats office, and I was one of them. It wasn't a fun job...

[Joakim]

Simply put, you don't see archery on the TV except once every four years, and for a few minutes of edited footage at that point.

I could see pretty much every match during the knock-out stages. But then, public service TV in my country ran two TV channels continuously with the Olympics, plus at least four additional web-based channels. I realize that many countries don't have that kind of Olympic coverage.

I don't agree. The format change creates two events out of one; the SFZ aspect is causing the finals and the qualification round to be completely distinct events. The two are different facets of the same problem. The SFZ is just the more immediately obviously nasty facet.

Are you saying that even if the finals were a full 60-shot match, it would be wrong to start from zero? If so, the ISSF has done things wrong both on 50m and 300m for ages, resetting the scores after the elimination round.

[Sparks]

I don't agree. The format change creates two events out of one; the SFZ aspect is causing the finals and the qualification round to be completely distinct events. The two are different facets of the same problem. The SFZ is just the more immediately obviously nasty facet.

Are you saying that even if the finals were a full 60-shot match, it would be wrong to start from zero? If so, the ISSF has done things wrong both on 50m and 300m for ages, resetting the scores after the elimination round.

I'm saying that if the finals were a full 60-shot match starting again from zero, then qualifications and finals would be two seperate distinct events (and yes, I think it would still be unfair).

Isn't that why USA shooting sums the results of a few matches for the US olympic trials? Or am I reading that scoresheet incorrectly?

[Richard H]

Well sparks if it was forced on the archers, it worked for me, first time I've ever watch an archery competition, I have since gone out and dropped $3000 on a bow and gear and I'm loving archery. So i know it attracted at least one new person and it seems that archery enjoyed pretty high rates of viewership.

[Richard H]

Sparks what changes would you think are fair, as much as I'm fatigued with ISSF incrementally changing stupid things, I'm becoming equally tired of those that think everything is great and nothing should be changed. I'd like to hear what changes you think would be "fair" in your definition of fair. Or is it you would prefer that everything just stays the same until the IOC kicks our butts out and replaces us with some x-games skateboarding event or ballroom dancing?