ARmy Rumour SErvice

We should return to the proper spirit of the Olympics, it was a celebration of the skills needed for warfare.

Bring back proper manly events like the Pankration, and all athletes should compete in the nuddie.

Ok but not the parade, geoff capes in the buff eurgh

Originally Posted by RoofRat

But to be fair,the Olympics was originally an athletics affair,

Hmmmm..the first "modern" olympics in 1896 had Shooting, fencing, swimming, tennis and so on.

The shooting had 5 events, 2 rifle and 3 pistol.

Athletics consisted of the marathan, 100 and 400 meter races, but attracted a greater international field.

Naturally the very first ancient olympics around 600bc did not have shooting because of the lack of ammo available for the LLee Enfiled No.4 at the time ;)

Originally Posted by sunnoficarus

We should return to the proper spirit of the Olympics, it was a celebration of the skills needed for warfare.

Bring back proper manly events like the Pankration, and all athletes should compete in the nuddie.

But please leave beach vollyball!!!

Originally Posted by ugly

So whilst rowing and running gets money shooters who win golds get fuck all and worse than that the new ones dont get the chance?

Not quite. Like all sports, you get funded on results. There hasn't been a GB Olympic pistol medal since 1912. Rifle did OK in the 80s because of the medals brought back by Malcolm Cooper, Alister Allan, Barry Dagger, Mike Sullivan; no medals since then for rifle events. Lately, shooting funding has been reliant on the performance in shotgun events; Gold and a Silver in Sydney 2000 were the last GB Olympic shooting medals. If UK Sport set you a result target, and you miss that target, your funding goes down. It's not just the Olympics, but it has a serious weighting.

Meanwhile, the GB cyclists have utterly dominated track cycling for the past four years, and GB rowers have been banging in the medals on a regular basis. Success creates funding.

It doesn't help that the culture of UK target shooting was based around shooting smallbore at 50 and 100yds (all the international stuff is done at 50m) and shooting fullbore at 3/5/6/9/1000yds (all the international stuff is done at 300m). Shooting in an open field at a 20-shot card may be wonderfully traditional, but it isn't what you need for the Olympics. There are plenty of British ISSF-focussed shooters with their names on the Roberts trophy; somewhat fewer Imperial-focussed shooters with their name on the GB ISSF trophy.

I've watched GB Shooting develop over the past 20 years, admittedly with my focus on smallbore rifle. The GB level coaching setup of the 1990s was a joke (FFS, they wouldn't even ask Allan and Cooper to help); we had no credible coaches running the squads (nor enough of them), no real structure, no credible feeder programs, no credible grassroots-to-international progression. Success was down to individuals and their efforts. The NSRA seemed to believe that the Pershing Match (a GB v. USA match) should be the pinnacle of every shooter's aspiration.

Ironically, the current successes have stemmed from the work done by Welsh and Scottish governing bodies in the 80s/90s (all of the boring paperwork stuff done by unpaid volunteers) that led to small-scale funding and the first properly-structured training squads, that led to some decent results by the Scots and Welsh. There was the mid-90s revamp of the GB squad selection (you should have heard the squeals when it was suggested that you had to record a 596 at one of the GB selection matches in order to qualify for a major match like the Europeans - "it's too hard, too windy, why don't we just send someone anyway", etc).

The Scotland Squad was training regularly, in a structured training programme, with properly-qualified coaches, from 1998 or so. This was supported by a series of ISSF-style competitions held around the country, and a Scottish ISSF championships. Junior and B squads were added. There's now a published pathway available for hanging up in any SSRA-affiliated club.

After a disappointing CG98 for Scotland (two bronze), CG2002 saw a gold and a silver, CG2006 saw a couple of golds and a silver, CG2010 saw Scotland win all four gold medals in the prone rifle events, and a few other medals beside. With success comes increased funding from Sport Scotland / the Scottish Institute of Sport; not much at the beginning (along with individual funding between £3k and £10k, for maybe six or seven squad members - but that can make all the difference); after 2006, enough for the Performance Programme to consider essentially full-time employment contracts for a coach in each of shotgun and smallbore. By 2005, the bulk of the GB SB rifle squad were Scots. There was an all-Scottish GB team at one European Championships. Two out of the three GB Olympic rifle team are Scots (and in the world top ten or thereabouts). There's a Scottish GB head coach for smallbore TR.

Meanwhile, the ESSU couldn't manage to fill in the paperwork to get funding, couldn't organise a regular training squad, and got overtaken last decade. Not sure how their current system is doing, but it should be doing so much better.

We tried "oh, we'll just send someone, what's the harm" for a couple of decades, and it didn't work. When we moved to "there's the standard, meet it or f*** off", people stepped up.

(edited to add some clarity around Scottish funding levels over the past decade)

Originally Posted by ugly

Ok but not the parade, geoff capes in the buff eurgh

But just imagine womens fencing in the buff!

Gravelbelly, many thanks for all the informative posts.

I think there is a strong case to be made for sending competitors even if they are not likely to podium.
Events at ever higher levels are consequently higher profile and more intimidating. With target shooting sports having a large psychological element, doing an event for the first time when ranked high or with an average in the medal league is not likely to deliver a personal best.
Far better to prop up the bottom of the results board a couple of times, get the experience at that the level, then when your ability catches up you are cool enough to deliver at your best - this at least has been my personal experience.

With regard to Bisley, I see no reason why a modern accomodation facility could not have been built to deliver a future legacy. Inns of Court may have atmosphere, but I doubt it meets the standards and expectations for international competitors.
If this had happened, along with a comprehensive revamp of the whole place, there would be no need to commute, as has happened for other events with logistic issues.

You're missing the point Alsacien, the whole point was to ensure the lowest possible profile for competitive shooting in the UK and leave absolutely no physical legacy whatsoever.