Olympic selection - article from Independant on Sunday

[McTrucky]

Alan Hubbard
Sports Columnist
Independent on Sunday
01932 840167
07785 740612
Long shot: Mick Gault looks likely to miss out on a place at London 2012

Britain's top marksman, Mick Gault, who came out of retirement to take a pot shot at an Olympic place this summer, looks likely to miss his target on a technicality, despite the concern of the former sports minister, Kate Hoey, who is president of British Shooting.

Record-breaker Gault, 58, awarded the OBE after becoming the nation's most prolific Commonwealth Games competitor in any sport – 17 medals including nine golds – achieved a qualifying score for the free pistol but has now been told that the only host nation quota place available is for the air pistol, for which he does not have the required mark. Yet, as he points out, the irony is that should he be selected for Team GB, under Olympic rules he would be permitted to shoot in both categories.

Even though Hoey, one of his greatest admirers, has made representations on his behalf, British Shooting will be sending only one pistol shooter to London, 27-year-old Georgina Geikie, a part-time Devon barmaid who is known as Britain's Lara Croft for her prowess with the 25 metres sport target pistol. Says Gault, a civil servant with the RAF in Norfolk: ''I am disappointed and gobsmacked that we apparently are returning several host nation places, which seems a shame for myself and other British shooters.''

British Shooting say: ''This is nothing personal. We don't have a home quota place in free pistol, only air pistol. As no one has achieved a qualifying mark in that event we have asked the British Olympic Association if we can change that place for one in a discipline where we have achieved it, like rifle or trap shooting. It seems only fair to allow someone who has the qualifying criteria to compete.''

Shame though, that someone of Gault's calibre has to bite the bullet.

[Bing!]

Sounds rather like another chance for the government to give the pistols a good kicking, again.
Or am I just being paranoid/cynical?


Bing!

[Hemmers]

Already under discussion in Members Only.

[zooma]

Radio 5.

I notice a lot of air time being devoted to the Olypic games in the evenings ( along with most other sporting events) and think that it would be a great idea for someone who is fully aware of all of the facts to contact any of the evening presenters to explain the situation and get the maximum exposure to possibly help jerk some some of reasonable reaction that may help to resolve this in favour of allowing Mick Gault to shoot and represent our nation at the London Olympics.

This programe seems to be able to get the ear of many polititians and government ministers etc - most of whome seem keen to "self-promote" and many to follow-up on any "just cause".

Certainly the phone-in that it would provoke would give a lot of public air time to the problem and create a lot more public awareness about what is going on. No doubt the appropiate minister or official would be called upon to speak live to answer the questions.

This could also open the door for Robin C to expand the subject to include the subect of the new shooting facilioty that will be knocked down after the games, and yet has restricted entrance for most when it used for events we would like to be able to support.

This has just got to be worth a go surely?

[RobinC]

I may be paranoid but I have come around to believe despite not wishing too and having a strong belief in democracy that shooting in this Olympics is being influenced by an anti gun political conspiracy, this is not the place to go into depth on the facts and history of Lord Coe but suffice to say that being very diplomatic that he is not known for being pro shooting.
I have written 5 letters to my MP on the issues surrounding the Olympic shooting fiasco, and not even recieved one reply despite repeated chasing, I have written direct to the Sports Minister on all the issues, not being a permant site, the refusal of use of it for domestic championships even though it is complete and not being used, the refusal to make the World Cup trial even open to spectators. At least he did reply, his reply was that it was not his responsibility, it was all down to LOCOG (back to Coe agin!). He gave Locogs reasons for all the issues, which were ridiculous so I replied pointing out the correct facts, he replied again, stating, "the Minister has nothing more to add."
We had the case last year when LOCOG tried to exclude shooting from the sports to be covered by the free issue of tickets to school children, initialy stating it was not a good example for them, and then being forced to back track when the press got hold of it.
In our club we have just had 2 members win British air gun championships, and three more win medals and cups, our local area newspaper did not even print the report given to them, but in the same week printed an anti gun article which was factually incorrect and to call it a rant was being polite.
So we have to accept that as we are a tiny minority that all shooting however serious is not politicaly accepted in this "democracy" and pistol shooters however serious are the lowest of the low, that place will go to a shot gunner. Sad but true.
Good shooting
Robin

[Hemmers]

Robin, on the matter of schools "not being offered tickets to the shooting", it was found that London schools had been sent surveys of what events their pupils might like to attend and none had asked for shooting tickets, so none were reserved for that group of people (and were instead allocated for general sale/British Shooting/sponsors). Kate Hoey did a lot of digging and came to the conclusion it was either an overzealous reporter or one rogue staffer in LOCOG ticketing who thought it "the PC thing to do". LOCOG Press HQ knew nothing of it!

That story "broke" in just one single paper (who have a reputation for defending their articles vehemently) and when LOCOG said it wasn't true there wasn't a peep out of the paper in their defence. They also had some rather dubious out-of-context quotes that suggested the whole article was written by a work experience kid and their sources weren't anything that would stand up to scrutiny.


Local papers are another matter. Certainly many clubs do get stuff published locally, but little papers can be a law unto themselves depending on the personal views of their editors. Not really much you can do about that unless it's actual defamation, libel or harassment - freedom of the press is sacrosanct.

Depending on where you are though, there can be other routes - even our little town is covered by two papers (from separate news groups), plus a broader paper that includes us as well as Stoke. If you can't get on with one, then try another. And badger them persistently with league results, Bisley/Competition reports, photos of smiling juniors, females and disability members (note that Charlotte Kerwood, Julia Lydall and Gorgs Geikie rarely have difficulty getting their faces published. If you're going to play the media game, you have to do it properly. A photo of five old men might be okay occasionally, but they're not going to publish them on a regular basis. Eye candy on the other hand is usually welcomed. Chauvinistic? Yep. The way the media works? 'fraid so).

Certainly the Olympic shooting has been farcical, no doubt to some extent due to the involvement of Tessa Jowell and Labour who were never friends of shooting. Coe should be a friend of shooting - what happened there is a bit of a mystery, although doubtless it comes down to keeping his head below the parapet on controversial topics and feathering one's own nest.

[Powderfinger]

Wasn't Seb Coe once a member of the National Pistol Association but hurriedly resigned after Dunblane? He always seems very hostile to the shooting sports now. Not just because of the Greenwich debacle but I have read one of his replies to a query about why pistol shooting is so restricted in mainland Britain. I recall that his reply was mealy-mouthed politico-speak and made no mention that he once was part of NPA. I put him in the same category as the awful David Mellor. Other countries must be totally bewildered at the attitude of our political class towards the shooting sports. In developing countries, such as India, China, Cental Asia and the Middle East, shooting seems to be a sport that is celebrated and their competitors are encouraged to develop.

[RobinC]

Wasn't Seb Coe once a member of the National Pistol Association but hurriedly resigned after Dunblane? He always seems very hostile to the shooting sports now. Not just because of the Greenwich debacle but I have read one of his replies to a query about why pistol shooting is so restricted in mainland Britain. I recall that his reply was mealy-mouthed politico-speak and made no mention that he once was part of NPA. I put him in the same category as the awful David Mellor. Other countries must be totally bewildered at the attitude of our political class towards the shooting sports. In developing countries, such as India, China, Cental Asia and the Middle East, shooting seems to be a sport that is celebrated and their competitors are encouraged to develop.

I think you'll find he was in a figure head position in the NPA, and yes when the decent law abiding sportsmen and women were under attack from all quarters for the actions of a madman who was permitted to have guns due to official incompetance, rather than defend the sport he resigned. Who needs enemies when you have friends like that!
The only worse one was Blair who called us "60,000 Thomas Hamiltons in waiting."
Robin