- 8 Aug 08, 05:15 AM
Beijing
One of the great inventions of the ancient Chinese world was gunpowder.
So it's not a great surprise that the first Olympic champion of the Beijing Games is very likely to be a Chinese shooter.
Du Li is the defending champion in the women's 10m air rifle (yes, I know that you don't need gunpowder to shoot an air rifle).
I'm expecting to see her crowned champion again at around 11am local time (4am UK time) on the first morning of the Games, surrounded by ecstatic local fans.
I went out to the shooting venue in the Shijingshan district on the outskirts of Beijing.
It's actually more like two venues - the Beijing Shooting Range Hall, which hosts the rifle and pistol events, and the Beijing Shooting Range Clay Target Field, which is where the shotgun shooters will do their stuff.
It's a huge complex - and the envy of British Shooting's performance director John Leighton-Dyson.
He's put together a team which includes Sydney Olympic champion Richard Faulds, European champion Steve Scott, double Commonwealth champion Charlotte Kerwood, and world record holder Elena Little.
But they've been called together from all the four corners of the globe.
There's no elite shooting centre in the UK, so all the top Brits end up following their coaches to Italy, Germany, Finland, or even the USA, where rifle shooter Jon Hammond is a coach at the University of West Virginia.
The National Shooting Centre at Bisley doesn't have an indoor facility up to international standards - so winter training there is out.
The GB shooting community had been hoping the 2012 Olympics would give them the chance to build a brand new home for elite shooting - or see Bisley upgraded to a top-class competition venue.
But instead, it'll be held at Woolwich, in a structure which will be taken down after the games - so no long lasting legacy for the sport there.
And then there's the problem of pistols.
Since the Dunblane massacre of 1996, and the Firearms Amendment Act of 1997 which followed, it's been illegal to own a cartridge-fired handgun in the mainland UK. As a result, a whole generation of pistol shooters had to give up the sport or move abroad.
It's a hugely emotive issue, of course.
No-one is suggesting the sacrifice of those people is on anything like the scale of those who lost loved ones at Dunblane.
But Leighton-Dyson says the handgun ban hasn't exactly made the streets safer - and countries where gun crime is far worse than the UK haven't had what he describes as a "knee-jerk reaction" to similar atrocities.
You may have little sympathy with his view.
You may well think it's ludicrous to suggest that introducing more young people to guns is a good idea.
But you get the sense that any British medal success on the shooting range over the next week or so will be in spite of, rather than because of the system.
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You may also conclude that shooting a gun should not be considered a sport and therefore not in the Olympic games.
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That may be true, however shooting has been in the Olympics since it's inception in 1896.
It currently has participants from 103 nations, making it one of the most inclusive sports in the Olympic Games.
Winning an Olympic Gold Medal is considered the ultimate achievement in shooting sports. I believe this argument justifies its inclusion and casts a doubt on other sports where the Olympics are not the pinnacle... Football for one
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My post wasn't a "not a proper sport" sniff.
But last time I looked it was "citius, altius, fortius" not "most skillful with a tool originally designed to kill people". I understand the principles of skill, inclusivity and competition but - frankly - guns scare me. And I guess I just don't understand the attraction.
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Shooting is a skilled event, many sports can get you killed, no one moans about archery and javelin, they could be considered weapons. Its not as enthralling as some other sports, but the people who are competing are at the top of their sports.
I agree with the second comment about football not having the best players, why arent the olympics ranked highly by fifa, must be money
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Good point. I now want to ban archery as well.
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Shooting is one of the safest sports in the UK (incidentally fishing is one of the most dangerous). The attentions we pay to all aspects of safety both on the range and in our overall attitude to firearms is a key feature of the sport which is depentent on the principles of disipline and respect.
I current shoot at least 3 times a week (and am hoping that I may be competing in London in 2012). Sport is supposed to teach many things to young people but the self disipline to work hard at somthign to see an improvment in your ability must be one of sports greatest bennifits.
i therefore find it extreamly distateful that MISTERFRISKY (and probably a majority of the population) are concerned about this great sport while having a clearly lacking knowlage of it on which to base a sound judgment.
Personally i learnt to shoot at school and I fell that the mroe we encourage young people to shoot the more tolerant society will be (not to mention adding a realistic prospect of a few more medals to our Olympic total!!)
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P.S. further to my above comments, please bear in mind that the type of rifles used in competiton shooting are very differnet from what most people expect a gun to be:
http://www.championshooters.com/1913_2213-big.JPG
that is a picture of what i shoot, it's hardly credible as a weapon is it? therefore it's much better to think of them as preciciton sporting equipment (which jsut happens to require a FAC)
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Well, we've each had our say and there is enough in your post and mine for people to make up their own minds. I would like to point out that at no point did I say the sport itself was intrinsically dangerous - merely that it was rooted in an activity I (and the majority) find distatsteful.
Presumably people who fish merely die from boredom.
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It annoys me when those who don't know the first thing about shooting come out with such comments as misterfrisky. The time and dedication spent by shooters in becoming masters of the art you wouldn't believe. 2 hours - at least - spent in front of the mirror holding the firearm checking and controlling any movement. Hours in the gym on the cardiovascular equipment. Building up the slow twitch muscles, running 3+ miles a day - and the list goes on. If you concider shooting not to be a sport then at least list the rest that aren't e.g. football. And remember the most medalled athlete is a pistol shooter.
And it isn't illegal to own a cartridge fired handgun in the UK so the author (Eleanor?) best do some more research.
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I agree with regalblackadder - I spend a lot of time training, more so now than when I was a triathlete.
The fact is I have chosen to compete in a sport which requires not only fine motor control but great stamina and patience. I'm capable of racing middle distance running races, capable of some pretty good triathlon times at Olympic distance (even if I do say so myself) and yet I have chosen to partipate in an activity which is branded as distasteful in my home country (which I don't live in any more because it's got some very silly laws)...why? Because it's actually really hard. I mean it's up there with 3-day cycling events.
Guns CAN kill people. So can punching them in the face and yet I hear little or no outcry about Olympic boxing, a sport which is rooted in personal aggression. If I was even remotely angry when target shooting I'd score very poorly indeed, in fact I'd say agitation is inversely related to shooting scores. So what do we want to glorify as a society - calm, considered and very peaceful target shooters who just happen to own rifles/pistols, or aggressive sportsmen who have to get pent up to compete..? The lattter is true of most sports, my life is much more calm now I compete as a shooter, although the smell of cordite in your clothes can get a bit irritating at times...
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Small point to comment No3..... shot putt, discuss and javelin.... all weapons
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Small point to comment No3..... shot putt, discus and javelin.... all weapons
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As I understand it the original Olympic sports were all, at the time, considered to be martial arts. (I refer of course to the Ancient games). They were the various skills required by a field soldier in Ancient Greece - a society not well known for it's pacifist stance.
The reality is that almost all sports have a martial base. Modern games such as football were devised primarily to teach the scions of priviledge how to work as part of a team, a skill many of them would carry in to military service.
A competition shooter is attempting to achieve the task of placing a projectile in to a given target area, which is exactly what a football player, basketball player, and golfer are also attempting to do - the size and disposition of the projectile is largely irrelevant.
The firearm was in use in Europe as a sporting device before it was given any serious consideration as a military weapon - so rather than "originally designed to kill people" I would offer you "originally designed to knock over small targets and possibly game animals".
A generation of young people, my father included, learned to shoot the Lee-Enfield .303 - then the main shoulder weapon of the British forces - at school at the tender age of fourteen, very few of them went on to commit armed violent crime. Perhaps education works better than prohibition? If you seek to ban all legitimate shooting sports you are only left with headline grabbing sensationalist coverage of the very rare occurrances of gun crime.
Both the motto "citius, altius, fortius" and the Olympic Ring motif were heavily integrated with propaganda during the '36 games in Berlin - do you not also find these associations distasteful? I'll see your Olympic motto and raise you the pseudo-greek "Hoplophobia"!
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As has been noted, shooting has been on the Olympic programme since 1896.
As with all true sports, it is a test of a useful ability - running, cycling, swimming or sailing fast, shooting accurately (whether with bow and arrow, gun and cartridge, javelin, discus or shot putt), martial arts and hand-to-hand combat, physical poise and co-ordination (gymnastics) and just brute strength. The ability to jump high, or across obstacles.
The rest (football, basketball, rugby, hockey), are games - you play a game of them. Yes, they have a very valid purpose, of promoting physical fitness and teamwork, but they are games nonetheless.
Shooting is an excellent pursuit. If you look at the Olympic ranges, you will see only fit, muscular athletes who train hard to keep their cardiovascular systems in top condition (and keep their heart beat as slow as possible whilst shooting). You need to be cool, calm and collected, even when under enormous stress.
A colleague who teaches has found that disruptive students tend to calm down after being taught to shoot - they develop a focus and learn to concentrate.
All in all, a rather useful skill.
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