‘People are dropping things when you shoot’: ISSF rule tweaks draw Indian ire at Asian Shooting Championships as 50m 3P shooters struggle to adapt

On Tuesday, two Indians medaled at the Asian Shooting Championships 50m 3P event with Aakriti Dahiya picking up her first-ever international medal – a silver at the Dr Karni Singh Shooting Range, while veteran shooter Anjum Mougdil won a bronze in the same event. But for Moudgil, the event initially turned out to be haphazard and led to a first in her 18-year long shooting career.

“I missed my sighters and started the match directly. That was the first time something like this happened in 18 years of shooting,” Anjum said on Tuesday. “I missed the sighting time and started the match directly without knowing about it. I hit eight shots before realising that the match had already started.

“The positive bit is that I usually try to hit good shots when sighting my rifle, so all my shots were tens and above,” said Moudgil.

Earlier, the event was divided between a kneeling shooting series, followed by a seven-minute changeover period for all shooters, succeeded by a kneeling series, and then another combined changeover period.

The current format leaves the onus of time taken to shoot and changeover to the next section completely on the whim of the shooter. Essentially, the ISSF rule now is that a shooter will have 22 minutes to take their kneeling shots, change and adjust their equipment, take their prone shots and then change equipment again and be prepared for the standing section to begin.

Better marketing

India’s national rifle coach, Deepali Deshpande, said that rather than the ISSF continuously tweaking the format, trying to find the perfect fit for an Olympic audience, the sport and its intricacies needed to be marketed better.

“Like in cricket, there is not much you can see from the stadium. (On television) they show the potential of where the ball could go and how the field is set. They use graphs and make the sport easy for the viewer to understand. Rather than working on formats, the ISSF needs to present the sport better. It’s an easy thing to ask the sport to speed up here or slow down there, but ultimately, this is what the sport is. The ISSF needs to put effort in to get that part done,” said Deshpande to The Indian Express.

Not every shooter shoots at the same pace. The ones who got their first ten kneeling shots off quicker than others started to get up and set mats for the prone position, and essentially disturbed other shooters in their vicinity, something noted by ace Indian men’s shooter Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar, who was watching from the stands.

“The qualification is fine, but the finals have become less interesting. Earlier, they would stop the competition after five shots and people would be interested in checking the score. Now people will only open YouTube after these 22 minutes to watch the standing section,” said Aishwary to The Indian Express.

“Then there is the issue of kneeling or prone, where someone might finish faster than you and get up and move their rifle, mat or equipment while someone is shooting next to them. That air or dust floating about will distract you,” said Aishwary. “People are getting up, people are dropping things when you shoot…” trailed off the young shooter. He is set to be a part of the same event on the men’s side on Thursday.

Moudgil, however, has already started to come to terms with yet another disruptive measure. “For us older athletes, we’ve seen the sport change its rules often. We are used to the new changes made and it will take a few more training sessions,” she said.