Shooting withdrawn from Modern Pentathlon

[Rutty]

Well not quite "shooting withdrawn" but since air pistols are apparently dangerous and lead pellets are bad for the environment the Modern Pentathlon authorities have decided to substitute a laser pointing event instead. They have even carried out a rigorous scientific trial

No, it isn't April 1st and they do appear to be serious.

The logical extension of course is to bin the whole thing and just run the competition on X-box or the like. Get's rid of those nasty smelly horses, not to mention the pointy sword things!

Rutty

[P30man]

This will please the couple of girls I train, they have just bought new styre pistols.

[bullbarrel]

It only says for the youth olympic games.

In some ways I'm actually in favour of this for target shooting. I'd save a shed loads on ammo.

Not sure if it would work on rabbits mind

[Rutty]

It only says for the youth olympic games.

The decision says much more than that:

The introduction of laser pistol in the shooting event was the key decision taken by the consensus of the Congress following a motion presented by the Executive Board. Thelaser shooting concept will first enter a testing and transition phase in 2010. The testing will take place in a number of competitions including the 2010 World Cup Final. In addition at the first Youth Olympic Games in Singapore laser shooting will be used in the competition. Following this, the 2010 Congress will then take the decision on the introduction of the new system beginning 1 January 2011.

Although the final decision will not be made until the 2010 Congress it looks like they fully intend to go down this road. Still as you say bullbarrel, save on the ammo and get a new "gun" from Ryman's intead of Steyr!

Rutty

[The Reverend]

As a logical extension to this decision, there goes the problem with pistol shooting at the 2012 olympics.

[harry mac]

As a logical extension to this decision, there goes the problem with pistol shooting at the 2012 olympics.

The shooting events in the olympics have been in decline for years. In the 1920s there was even running deer and running boar. Photos at Bisley show the British olympic squad, complete with double rifles. Just recently all the full bore events have been dropped in favour of small bore. Next, will probably be the clay events as these use too much space, and after that the small bore and airgun events as they use lead projectiles indoors.
The sporting bodies are too clever to come right out and say "we don't like guns/shooting" so they'll get rid in other ways.

[Hemmers]

The shooting events in the olympics have been in decline for years. In the 1920s there was even running deer and running boar. Photos at Bisley show the British olympic squad, complete with double rifles. Just recently all the full bore events have been dropped in favour of small bore. Next, will probably be the clay events as these use too much space, and after that the small bore and airgun events as they use lead projectiles indoors.
The sporting bodies are too clever to come right out and say "we don't like guns/shooting" so they'll get rid in other ways.

The smallbore events are outdoor.

And what fullbore? I assume you mean the running target event which was last held in 2004. Tis still an ISSF discipline but sadly not an Olympic one. As far as fullbore target rifle goes, there was 300m Free-Rifle, which was last contested in the 70s, and 1000yd "Military Rifle" which was only ever contested in 1908.

The emphasis of Olympic rifle has been very much smallbore and air for many years. Fullbore Target Rifle is still a Commonwealth event, but has never really been an Olympic event.
With so many facilities to cater for, building a large scale 600-1000yd range including safety zones behind it has always been a step too far.
It can be accomodated at the Commonwealths because the big fullbore TR nations are mostly Commonwealth nations - the Home Nations, South Africa, Australia, Canada, etc. Not forgetting the US (they have lots of open space!). These nations usually already have fullbore ranges. But if the Olympics were being held in France say, you would struggle to find a 1000yd range on the scale of Bisley to accommodate Olympic numbers of competitors.
The emphasis outside the Commonwealth has always been very much ISSF disciplines - air gun, .22, some 300M TR, running target and the various pistol and clay disciplines.
Of course there are others - IPSC, FT, etc, but as far as .22 target rifle goes, they don't mess with 10-spots like we do, or "national disciplines", it's all derived from ISSF shooting, which is perhaps why they have so many more candidates for national squads. Having got people set shooting to a reasonable standard, they don't then have to lever them over to ISSF courses of fire from the NSRA courses.

The sporting bodies are too clever to come right out and say "we don't like guns/shooting" so they'll get rid in other ways.

Do you have evidence to support this? Would be very interested to see it. Bear in mind that although we have a very hostile press in the UK, most of the world sees shooting as just another sport. Nothing special about it, and no reason it shouldn't be part of multi-sport games. Raymond Debevec is a national hero - he was the first person to win an Olympic Gold medal for Serbia. He can hardly walk down the street without getting his hand shaken and people asking to get photos with him. A far cry from the recognition the likes of Gault, Stirton and Huckle get in our national press!

Across much of Europe, shooting clubs are part and parcel of local social clubs and community centres, complete with bars and in some cases a few bowling lanes. They foster a proper community spirit, with social members propping up the bar, shooting once a year in the club championships and allowing their beer money and membership fees to subsidise the facility for the keen shooters.

[Powderfinger]

This is very bad news and a metaphorical coffin nail. The fact that it was a decision made by representatives of countries such as the Czech Republic, which has a strong shooting tradition, shows how fragile the shooting sports really are. They are constantly in danger of being legislated out of existence by various rather sneaky means. We must all be vigiliant about this and try to protect shotogin sports in the best ways that we can. If you go back in the Olympics far enough, there was not only fullbore shooting but also live pigeon shooting...I certainly do not think the latter will ever make a comeback.

[38thfoot]

surely for London '12 this would be dead easy; imagine it Olympic Pigeon shooting, live for Trafalger Square.

38

[sandy22]

Raymond Debevec is a national hero - he was the first person to win an Olympic Gold medal for Serbia.

Err.... Slovenia?

[Hemmers]

Err.... Slovenia?

Yes, my bad. Was going on the basis of one of Eley's promotional posters which features his photo and (SRB) after his name. I assume a typo, as it should read (SLO).

[harry mac]

The smallbore events are outdoor.
And what fullbore? I assume you mean the running target event which was last held in 2004. Tis still an ISSF discipline but sadly not an Olympic one. As far as fullbore target rifle goes, there was 300m Free-Rifle, which was last contested in the 70s, and 1000yd "Military Rifle" which was only ever contested in 1908.
.

Sorry Hemmers, I was under the impression (maybe wrongly) that some of the pistol events use .32 cal pistols until fairly recently.
Has this ever been the case?

[Hemmers]

Sorry Hemmers, I was under the impression (maybe wrongly) that some of the pistol events use .32 cal pistols until fairly recently.
Has this ever been the case?

Sorry, I was thinking more along the lines of rifle.
Um, there are certainly ISSF disciplines using .32.
Not sure whether they have been or are included in the Olympics.

I suspect there probably have been fullbore pistol events in the past.

[BigAl]

Again not sure of when the event happend at the Olympics. UIT Centerfire Pistol as it was the last time I was able to shoot it actually allowed up to .38 cal, as I used to shoot it with my S&W 586 .357mag. Course of fire was the same as sport pistol ie strings of 5 shots. Four strings in 120s four in 20s and four in 10s.
In fact FAS made, actually probably still make three almost identical pistols, the 602 603 and the 604. One of them was a match air pistol the other two were .22LR and .32 semi auto match pistol. In the hand they all felt very simillar and allowed the pistol shooter to shoot the three olympic competitions with effectively the same gun.

Alan

[Hemmers]

Found this article at Wikipedia. There's a handy grid showing which ISSF events are contested at which competitions.
There is a 25m CF pistol event, but not comtested at the Olympics.

The only Olympic pistol events are:
Men
10m Air Pistol
50m Pistol (.22)
25m Rapid Fire Pistol

Women
10m Air Pistol
25m Pistol (a.k.a Sport Pistol)

There's also a list of Discontinued Olympic disciplines (remember some of these are still ISSF disciplines contested at World Championships, etc. They've just been removed from the Olympic programme).