The International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) has restored the old format of the gold medal match between the top two shooters in the finals, an additional stage, in major sporting events including the World Cup and Olympics. ISSF had introduced an additional stage in the finals to decide the winner in pistol and rifle shooting after the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games. ISSF has now again gone back to the old elimination system where the best scorer will get the gold medal.
The top two shooters will no longer compete separately for the gold medal. The change will come into effect from the ISSF Pistol/Rifle World Cup in Baku (8-15 May) and will be followed during the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. To make the sport more spectator-friendly, a new points format for the final was introduced after the 2020 Tokyo Olympics where the two highest point-scorers compete for the gold medal instead of the earlier elimination process.
The first shooter to reach 16 points was declared the winner. This system was in force till the recently concluded ISSF Pistol/Rifle World Cup in Bhopal. The ISSF has kept the qualification round unchanged from where the eight highest-scoring shooters make it to the final. By changing the format for the final, ISSF has not only simplified the points system but also made it easier for the spectators to understand the contest. As per the latest format, all eight shooters will get two series of five shots each in the final.
This would be followed by 14 singles match shots where the shooter with the lowest score among the eight finalists would be eliminated after the 12th shot and the process would continue every two shots until the medal winners were decided. A total of 24 shots will be fired in the final to decide the winner. India’s rifle coach and high performance manager Deepak Dubey said that the pistol and rifle teams have been informed about the new rules and they will be training for the World Cup in Baku keeping the new rules in mind.
Dubey, who is in Bhopal for the national trials, said, “These new (rules) changes are not technical so shooters need not make any major changes in their technique. Only a few changes would be required in timing which can be easily done and we will work on it during the national camp in Delhi later this month.
“I am sure we will be very familiar with the new format before the Baku World Cup. We will fully implement the new format in the national trials.” Dubey said, “The only change I saw (in the ISSF rule book), was to do away with the extra round to decide the gold medalist. where the top two shooters remaining in the competition again had to compete for the gold and the first to reach 16 points became the champion. Everything else being equal.
