Olympic Rapidfire 2028 LA

[Mike M.]

There's definitely a need for informed color commentary.

[Bret P]

Hi everyone,

Lots of comments about pistol being dull and unwatchable to a main stream audience.

Well there are lots of dull, dull sports out there, darts, snooker, curling etc etc. What makes it watchable is two people or teams competing directly against one another.

Also there are only a few sports which allow a big turn around if a player is far behind e.g. darts and tennis.

So if you want to change pistol to be more watchable and keep it precision then allow two shooters to say; shoot 10 shots, maybe 3 games per set and 3 sets. Will need to do decimal scoring. Each shooter will have 30 secs per shot, they shoot at the same time, maybe shorter.

I know I'm going to get alot of push back on this idea, but it is fun, I and another shooter have tried it. I think it would be very watchable.... if that's what you want.

More viewers, equals more future players and more funding.

With regards to the future... I'm in the UK, no live pistol bullets only pellets. So I'd be happy even to do a long distance event like 50m with a laser gun, but those arent done either. It's about precision after all. But might be fun do 25m with an air pistol, also not done.

Just my thoughts. Anyone who wants to take the game set and match concept further, let me know

Bret.

[Grippy]

I think the direct competition thing is true. One of the few somewhat watched shooting events I know of are the Liga thing that exists in Germany. Teams of five but every shooter has a direct opponent from the other team. What's interesting there is that the actual program is just a regular 40 shot air pistol/rifle match. No funky scoring or timings.
Out of the five direct duels there is always at least one that is close which is apparently enough to make it interesting. Also there is some observable strategy as some people for example make sure to be quicker than their opponent in the hope of making them nervous by providing a specific score they "need" to beat.

I personally really dislike anything that is based on the idea of "allowing larger swings" by introducing more volatility. This is in my opinion intrinsically counter to what existing ISSF shooting is about. So yeah, I'm going to push back against anything that changes a sport that is already well liked by participants in favor of an imaginary audience.

Also swings are only interesting if they relate to something. If you could see an athlete change their approach somehow that would be interesting. But that wouldn't really be the case for us I think. It would just be random for the sake of being more random.

I have competed in this kind of event actually. It was five shots in two minutes with the air pistol (single loader) and whoever gets more tens wins the round. It's fun once in a while to do something like that. But if that was the default I'd stop because at that point it's just a different sport. The same applies to funky finals formats. The moment you diverge too much from the "boring" 60 shots you create a final that is basically a different event from qualification which is in my opinion silly.

It's like saying "marathons are boring... we need more interesting finals. So we take the top eight finishers ignore their times and have them compete on an obstacle course!".

[Bret P]

I get that.

So should the final then, just be another 60 shots?

Should there be a final?

Marathon running there is only one race and that's it?

[Grippy]

If I was allowed to decide that than yeah, more or less. Maybe make it 30 but as five shots in five minutes each or so. Or at least make the qualification relevant. I liked the old format where in addition to the 60 shots you added 10 finals shots. Back then the finals world records were also still meaningful. Maybe just extend that to 20 or 30.

People often counter that with the finals then being "predetermined" by the qualification. But then at the top level that's not really an issue since the qualification tends to be close anyway. And if it isn't... well then the clearly better shooter is winning. People watched Usain Bolt run BECAUSE he was winning, not in spite. So if there is a clear winner that is not a problem that needs to be fixed. However entering the finals with an "uneven" standing actually does set up an interesting tension in my opinion. There is a leader who is being hunted right away and an underdog that has a chance for heroics etc.

As opposed to finals starting at zero which provides no context to a viewer that isn't familiar with the athletes and then some person they have no attachment to gets booted after 12 shots because they hit a 9.0 once which just feels random.

I feel part of the precision shooting skill is time management and we entirely eliminate that in our finals for some reason.

The other thing is that finals ONLY exist in the Olympics and only for Olympic events. So I don't think they are "necessary" really.

Edit: I guess I pulled this thread of course a bit since it was about rapid fire... rapid fire at least has that property that the finals are basically the same as the actual event. So that is good.

[Azmodan]

archery is almost the same sport as shooting. they have finals in an 1v1 elimination style.
is it more popular? is it more watchable?