TargetTalk

SlartyBartFast wrote:And if 50m pistol is saved (I understand the historical significance), what other men's discipline gets dropped?

SlartyBartFast wrote:Why does the men's 50m prone event deserve to be saved when the women don't have a 50m prone event of their own?
And if 50m pistol is saved (I understand the historical significance), what other men's discipline gets dropped?

It's points I keep asking, but it seems no one wants to answer.

Easy to complain and blame "anti-gunners", but much more difficult to propose alternatives.

I'll stay out of the reincarnation of the petition threads. It's obvious that my views will have no impact on the aggressive confrontational wording or the have them reflect the points above.

I don't see anyone clamouring to create a petition to make the ISSF change their rulebook and competitions to gender neutral.

renzo wrote:Not every event in the OG program has to be neccesarily gender neutral:

renzo wrote:they are the most technically demanding, bar none, so there´s a fundamental reason to keep them.

Chia wrote:
That, of course, leaves free pistol. It is not widely watched in the U.S. because we have other precision sports, and in many countries (including the UK) obtaining even a single-shot pistol is difficult, limiting the number of athletes.

That is even more true concerning semiauto pistols, Nearly every country which has restrictions on handguns have one or another alibi for FP, including the UK, as awful as it seems to watch the "longarm" Morini; but they´re not axing RFP...............

Technological progress for free pistol has stagnated.

THAT could be one powerful reason: the industry is NOT interested in FP. A talented and well-trained shooter with a 50 year old, $ 400 TOZ-35 can gat to the Finals at any International Match. There´s not much equipment you can sell to him, and he can score over 570 (believe me, that´s a lot) with middle ground match fodder. Not many oportunities for money grabbing designers. In FP, the shooter topples the balance much more forcefully than in other events.

That doesn't change the fact that many bullseye shooters can and do achieve high masters scores at ranges comparable to free pistol. And a .22 is generally considered much easier to handle compared to a .45. Additionally, free pistol is similar (granted not the same) to air pistol, a sport that is much more widely accessible.

It seems to me that you haven´t had a FP in your hands in your entire life. Please compare (and I admit the difference in controlling a .45 and a .22) the size of the scoring rings and you´ll notice the difference in technical difficulty. Mind it, with all the Bullseye shooters grassroots base the USA has, this country has only one Olympic Gold and one Silver in FP (not counting the early modern OG´s when rules were different and participants fewer). This is widely apart from the US´s shooters performance in RFP, CF and SP events, much more alike Bullseye, where thay have left a sizeable mark.

SlartyBartFast wrote:

renzo wrote:Not every event in the OG program has to be neccesarily gender neutral:

But the OG program does need to be gender neutral.
Shooting before the changes has 9 men's events to 6 women's events.

Then I see you stoop to bashing me personally on how much shooting I've done.

Perhaps people who so bothered that their sport is going to be removed are TOO involved to see the issue from the point of view of others.

If I gave you that sensation, I apologize. I was NOT bashing you, just pointing to a component in the analysis process, in fact, I must also concede yours in the sense that deep involvement does not favor objectivity either.


There are LOTS of disciplines that are not present at many international competitions.

I know, I shoot some of them (CF, SP and MSP). One thing that must be pointed to the ISSF (as if it matters to its Nomenklatura) is that since the 80´s (when the WC were presented) all International ISSF sanctioned matches for those events excluded from the SOG´s were dropped from the program except for a quadriennial WCh. When airgun competitions were developing in the 70´s, they had separate WCh more often than regular ones occurred. If not even happy with FP´s chopping from the Games, I would be more tranquil if shooters from those barred events could compete at the top level every year, maybe as a separate WC (as do shotgunners). But kowtowing to the IOC takes too much of their time, I believe.................

renzo wrote:they are the most technically demanding, bar none, so there´s a fundamental reason to keep them.

I don't see anyone using that argument to get women's 50m prone represented at the Olympics. Or using that argument to promote women's 50m pistol in ISSF sanctionned events.

To get women´s prone at the OG takes only a pen stroke, they already shoot the position in 3-P. And FP, as I understand, is physically too demanding for the average woman physique. Here it applies the comparison I made with some gymnastic events, clearly not designed for women´s muscles.

What's your opinion on what should be dropped if these two are kept?

You´re posing me the same question the jesuit fathers used to pose when I was a child: who would save you from a sinking boat in a raft with room for only one: your mother or your father? That´s a logical phallacy. First of all, we should have never allowed us to be cornered into that decision, and my opinion is that we were allowed to by the present ISSF authorities and their dictatorial management, in order to be able to justify the means by the ends

• Why women can shoot the same number of shots as men in 50m prone, but only half as many in 3p.
  Why 10m AP and AR the ratio of shots is 2/3 not 1/2.
  Why the pistol event is so different.
  Why women can manage 60% more shots in double versus single trap while men can handle only a 20% increase.
  Why in mixed running target women are capable of the SAME course of fire as men, but otherwise can only handle 2/3 of the shots.

• 300m Rifle 3 Positions
  300m Rifle Prone
  300m Standard Rifle
  50m Pistol
  25m Rapid Fire Pistol
  25m Center Fire Pistol
  50m Running Target
  50m Running Target Mixed

renzo wrote:You´re posing me the same question the jesuit fathers used to pose when I was a child: who would save you from a sinking boat in a raft with room for only one: your mother or your father? That´s a logical phallacy. First of all, we should have never allowed us to be cornered into that decision, and my opinion is that we were allowed to by the present ISSF authorities and their dictatorial management, in order to be able to justify the means by the ends.

SlartyBartFast wrote:

BS. Every international event can't have every international discipline of every international sport. FACT.
Which disciplines have been at the OG changes over the years. FACT.
The OG has a limit on the number of althletes and events they'll support. FACT.

To the first: I didn´t say that EVERY int´l event should have them, at least once a year.

To the second: a lot, and obviously some of them are not with us today, but in some cases the buidgetary reasons were crystal clear: 300 meter ranges were expensive and had to be built in far away places from the central games; the same goes for running deer. Team events were dropped in 1932 alledging there was no team players interaction but simply an adding of scores (why this criteria wasn´t applied to running or swimming relays is obviously related to the attarctive of those sports, the real cornerstones of the SOG´s as far as the IOC is concerned, the rest of us just complete the schedule)

To the third: I was led to believe we were talking about the possibility of giving barred events´ shooters more chances to compete EVEN if complying with the IOC extorting move is inexorable.

There is no logical fallacy involved.

Yes there is, and also some twisting of the facts.

If you think it's about being cornered, what makes shooting so special that our events are sacred and don't have to bend to equality decisions, numbers of events, or numbers of athletes?

I´m not a runner or a weightlifter, so I don´t know the full history of that sports and their respective SOG´s disciplines. But I´ve been a competitive swimmer, and I can tell you (just check the IOC´s website, don´t trust me) that since 40 years ago the number of events and participants have grown out of proportion with anything except - obviously - TV revenues. It´s far easier (not inherently easy) to get to be an Olympian in swimming or running than in shooting, they have only what we know as MQS and a VERY flexible system of quotas. For a shooter to go to the OG´s he (or she) has to WIN a pre-determined step in top-level championships. For Rio, a female shooter from the club I preside got her OQ by taking SILVER at the PAG Toronto 2015, and that only because the gold winner already had hers. If she hadn´t, our athlete would´ve stayed home, with her continental medal in a box. No, shooting is in no way sacred, but to ignore that we´re being treated as the poor country cousin is blindness.

Why are the 15 events at the last OG the only ones worthy, why should they never change?

SlartyBartFast wrote: What's your opinion on what should be dropped if these two are kept?

SlartyBartFast wrote:But renzo, you're arguing for an impossibility.

There will not be more shooting events added. And far more popular sports are fighting to be included in the OGs.

The other ISSF events ARE in other ISSF competitions and have their annual competitions.

renzo wrote:And I don´t recall that non-Olympic shooting events have annaul competitiions.

renzo wrote:...(IDK how they will arrange things in Tokyo, in a country were weapons possession is largely forbidden)...

TenMetrePeter wrote:

renzo wrote:...(IDK how they will arrange things in Tokyo, in a country were weapons possession is largely forbidden)...

In London 2012 where cartridge pistols of the type used in OG are forbidden to most civilians they used Army barracks some miles away. So no "Olympic legacy" for shooters.