TargetTalk

Hi,

While watching the 10m pistol comp I noticed that a few people wearing side blinders appeared to have them foreward of the forehead, which under my understanding is against the rules. I am just watching the 25m rapid fire pistol final and again most of the competitots are wearing side blinders well forward of the forehead.

Has the rule changed recently and if not, why would this have not been picked up on? I don't think it is down to camera angles as the side blinders appear to either be in line with, or forward of the frames front bar which by the lwas of physics has to be in front of the forehead :)

Any thoughts?

Mark

Yep - Rule 6.4.10.3 seems to be very specific, doesn't it?

Maybe they'll all be disqualified!!!

I didn't make it clear in my initial post that these events were at the Olympics so the chances of them being disqualified now would be slim :)

I was being a little facetious!

Whereas it does appear to be a contravention of the rules, I doubt anyone will lose a medal(s) over it.

I'll guarantee that I would be taken to task by an official if I used a non-compliant blinder. Just my type of luck.

markwarren wrote:Hi,

While watching the 10m pistol comp I noticed that a few people wearing side blinders appeared to have them foreward of the forehead, which under my understanding is against the rules. I am just watching the 25m rapid fire pistol final and again most of the competitots are wearing side blinders well forward of the forehead.

Has the rule changed recently and if not, why would this have not been picked up on? I don't think it is down to camera angles as the side blinders appear to either be in line with, or forward of the frames front bar which by the lwas of physics has to be in front of the forehead :)

Any thoughts?

Mark

Actually I did the same reflection, but then I saw that some shooters had purple control stickers on the frames to make it impossible for the sideblinders to slide forward without removing/tearing the stickers.
So ill guess this was checked during the equipment control and we were just tricked by some optical phenomena ;-)

When controlling shooters blinders we frequently have impression that side blinders are well forward of the forehead, but they are not. This is caused by the fact, that a human head is not rectangular (fortunately!) and forehead has its natural curvature. So, usually we just take a look if blinders are not forward of the forehead tangent. In fact, this arises directly from the rule:

6.4.10.3 Side Blinders (either or both sides) attached to the hat, cap,
shooting glasses, or to a head band, not exceeding 40 mm deep
are permitted (A). These blinders must not extend further forward
than to a line from the center of the forehead...

BTW. Most of the "tape stickers" on blinders are often fixed by a jury member to cover any advertisement. These tapes look ugly, and personally I find this crazy to make it forbidden to have any sponsor sign on blinders... But, the rules...

I was also watching the Olympic footage, and while I am not definite on these observations, but some (especially the rifle shooters), definitely had side blinders that would not pass through my local competition's strict adherence to the ISSF rules.

I mean, a number of the rifle finalists were using torn paper targets as side blinders. And also they were placed in a vertical orientation, so as such, it is much taller than the 40mm allowance.

-trinity

I agree. You know, sometimes shooters have their equipment OK, and just before starting, for example the final, they change it or pull a target used as a blinder, etc. Then, a jury member has a choice - either go to the firing point and require corrections or let him go. Jury members are nowadays in difficult situation. Changes set by ISSF practicaly exclude jury members from the area of play, just the Jury member in charge is placed there and ... at not so comfortable place to see anything, so...
Moreover ISSF requires jury members to be "invisible" (I agree with that - for spectators, TV jury is not the most important part of play).

And sometimes we simply miss something that is incorrect. Just life :-)