2019-3 (June)

RESULTS

Munich World Cup

  • Mike Bargeron set a new British Record in the Men’s 3x40 at Munich, shooting 1180 ex1200 in his Elimination Match. He went on to shoot 1175 in Qualification, which was only good enough for 25th!

  • Seonaid McIntosh claimed a Silver Medal in the Women’s 3x40, making her the first British Woman to win a World Cup Rifle medal since Louise Minett won Silver for 10m Air Rifle at the 1999 Atlanta World Cup. World Cup medals are hard to come by - in the intervening 20 years there have only been two medals won by British Rifle shooters at World Cups - Neil Stirton (2008) and Ken Parr (2016) both took Silver in 50m Prone Rifle. The last British athlete to win a medal for Three-Position Rifle was Malcolm Cooper in 1989.

Fullbore

ADMINISTRATION

HBSA WW1 Commemorative Film

Between 2014 and 2018 the Historical Breechloading Smallarms Association set out to collect together and demonstration fire as many of the smallarms used in WW1 as we could arrange. These demonstrations were recorded, and have now been edited into our WW1 Commemorative film, available on YouTube.

ISSF Dress Code Concept

The ISSF have launched a consultation on their Dress-Code Concept. The rather death-by-Powerpoint slide deck states that they wish to develop unified team looks and easy identification of athlete’s name and country, along with “unified costumes for all athletes participating in finals”. All very laudable we’re sure.

This is illustrated with various pictures of rifle, pistol and shotgun shooters with helpful annotations such as “Not nice” and “Not attractive” with no further explanation as to what has caused offence, although it seems like shorts and trousers are problematic and bare legs are preferred!

The initiative does extend to officials, and one can a bit of a point here. It is not uncommon at Domestic events to see officials wearing various combinations of RO vests from the London Olympics as well as the Manchester and Glasgow Commonwealth Games, as well as the generic red ISSF RO vest. Standardising official uniforms to clearly demarcate roles and responsibilities would be beneficial not just aesthetically but also for safety.

Exemplars of “good costumes” come from other sports including Curling, Badminton and Hockey. It’s unclear why sports which involve two individuals or teams (in two contrasting colour schemes) are relevant to a shooting final where 8 individuals will be competing - many of whom will probably be wearing some combination of Red, White and Blue. Examples of proposed layouts for jackets and trousers are also offered, which some commentators have noticed would not actually pass ISSF Equipment Control.

Vigorous debate has already erupted online. Whilst shotgun and pistol shooters wear relatively conventional sports clothing (aside from shotgun jackets), made-to-measure rifle clothing comes out at over £1000 for jacket and trousers and the notion that shooters might be compelled to buy new kit in “national colours” has sparked considerable consternation.

Whilst you can see what the ISSF are getting at, for my part I don’t really see how this would make it easier to identify athlete names or nationalities given the relatively large number of athletes and the large overlap in national colours. At the Munich World Cup, 4 of the 8 finalists were from GB, Russia, Serbia and Norway - presumably all would be rocking subtly different variations on Red/White/Blue under these proposals, whilst Poland would also be laying claim to Red/White, not to be confused with China’s Red/Gold.

The train of thought seems to be coming from the likes of football, hockey and rugby - where a home or away strip can be trivially swapped. Rifle clothing by contrast is not only expensive, but requires breaking-in. This would cause issues for countries like Great Britain where athletes shoot for both GB and their Home Country. Would they need two sets of kit? Mr Thune must be rubbing his hands together! If the ISSF wishes to make the range look less “jumbled”, then the only real way forward is to look at Fencing and standardise to a single ISSF base colour with space for national flag and athlete name.

The ISSF invites responses at munich@issfsports.org.

NSRA ClubFinder

Another reminder that the NSRA have relaunched their ClubFinder. All Club Secretaries should have been contacted for details about their clubs. However, less than a quarter of the NSRA’s 800 affiliated clubs are currently featured - if your club is missing, check with your Club Secretary and have them follow up.

UPCOMING COMPETITIONS

Target Sprint

Tips and stories to submissions@riflereport.uk

« 2019-4 (August) 2019-2 (May) »