NTSA Calls for Expressions of Interest for 2011 Competition Season

It wasn't me!

Just published on the website. The competitions open for EoIs at the moment are

Intershoot den Haag, The Hague, 2nd to 6th February (air rifle and air pistol)
European Airgun Championships, Brescia, Italy, 1st to 7th March (Air rifle and pistol)
ISSF World Cup, Munich, 16th to 23rd June (Air and cartridge events)

Have put in my own EoI for the 50m prone rifle event in Munich. Just need to pull the scores together now. Ten to fifteen point jump inside six months. :eek: Doable though.

Full details and the original publishing are here. Hopefully there'll be a good, solid interest in some of these events now and we'll get some teams going.

FLOYDSTER

Mines in too!, Munich 50m prone!;)

It wasn't me!

Let's hope there are a few people on the plane now! Have a nice long training session tomorrow, so will shoot a sixty-shot match as a benchmark score to work from. Won't get to the 50m range this week though methinks, sadly.

Sparks

Mine in as well for the 10m stuff. Going to have to sort the jacket out though - having too much fun fighting mine at the moment. Thinking of taking a knife to the shoulder seam at the moment in fact.

dCorbus

Question: Is this required for any and all competitions out of Ireland? e.g. IoM, Bisley, etc. - or just for some of them?

Also, what are the minimum qualifying scores mentioned in Joe's notice?

Thanks,

dC

It wasn't me!

Sparks wrote: »

Mine in as well for the 10m stuff. Going to have to sort the jacket out though - having too much fun fighting mine at the moment. Thinking of taking a knife to the shoulder seam at the moment in fact.

Probably worth a go. Not like you're planning for it to last much longer anyway, so even as an experiment, there's not that much ventured. My own's going to need work, but I'm certainly not sending it away now, can't afford to miss the training with this coming up.

Sparks

dCorbus wrote: »

Question: Is this required for any and all competitions out of Ireland? e.g. IoM, Bisley, etc. - or just for some of them?

Just for those where you'd be on the National Team representing Ireland. If you went over to Bisley or the IoM, you'd be on your Club Team, so it's not necessary (and we don't send a National Team to those events anyways).

Also, what are the minimum qualifying scores mentioned in Joe's notice?

Fully explained here and here, but to be brief, for every International match you want to go to on the National Team, there's a minimum qualifying score that you have to hit in a qualifying match at home. That score is calculated for each international match as being the score you would have to have hit (on average in the last three years) to make it into the top two thirds of the field.

Sparks

It wasn't me! wrote: »

Probably worth a go. Not like you're planning for it to last much longer anyway, so even as an experiment, there's not that much ventured. My own's going to need work, but I'm certainly not sending it away now, can't afford to miss the training with this coming up.

Yeah, but yours is at least sound - mine is now nine years old, and it's seen it's fair share of wear and tear in that time and then some. I was planning on getting a new one earlier in the year anyway, and I only held off because of the ISSF's fecking about over composite materials.

It wasn't me!

dCorbus wrote: »

Question: Is this required for any and all competitions out of Ireland? e.g. IoM, Bisley, etc. - or just for some of them?

Also, what are the minimum qualifying scores mentioned in Joe's notice?

Thanks,

dC

No. It's required for any competition for which the NTSA has to sponsor you to go, such as a World Cup, European Championships or a World Championships. It's not required for anything you can attend off your own bat, such as the IoM Easter Shoot, ISCH Hannover or anything else. Moreover, these shoots are brilliant developmental platforms, and should form part of your own training schedule.

Minimum qualifying scores are based on previous competitions. It's the average of the score required to place in the top two thirds of the elimination round for each of the last three times the competition has been run. Since a world cup in Munich typically has two elimination rounds, that means the average of six results. However, it means inside the top two thirds, not at the mark itself, so let's say the two-thirds cut off shooter is number 46, and the score is 588, but the four shooters above him also have 588 and two shooters below him also have 588, that would mean that to qualify, you needed a 589 to be secure, so it's the average over the last three years of the competition. I was trying to check it myself and could only find results for 2008 and 2009, the result being 589.25, so I'd expect it'll be either 589 or 590. It's a solid cut-off score to ensure you're serious enough about it. The idea is that you get through the elimination and, as a minimum, get two matches worth of experience abroad. It's a good system. Personally I'd like to see a second tier, for shooters putting in an Olympic MQS, who can travel without funding, on the basis that having shooters put in an MQS abroad widens the pool of people who are entitled to shoot in the Olympics should we be awarded a wild-card or win quota places, but until we see the scores published and any additional details, it won't be possible to see the full picture of how it'll be run. Looking forward to it anyway, going to be an interesting few months.

Bananaman

Great to see that there have been over 70 people going for the international Teams

B'Man

It wasn't me!

Sparks wrote: »

Yeah, but yours is at least sound - mine is now nine years old, and it's seen it's fair share of wear and tear in that time and then some. I was planning on getting a new one earlier in the year anyway, and I only held off because of the ISSF's fecking about over composite materials.

Aye, it's not much of a jacket anymore alright. Decided on a replacement yet? Presumably you'd be having new trousers made too?

FLOYDSTER

dCorbus wrote: »

Question: Is this required for any and all competitions out of Ireland? e.g. IoM, Bisley, etc. - or just for some of them?

Also, what are the minimum qualifying scores mentioned in Joe's notice?

Thanks,

dC

The minimum qualifying scores may be announced before certain shoots!, you should really be looking close to 590 !, the N.Ire MQS for prone re: sports council etc is only 587!

Do you mean before you can compete at Bisley, IoM etc

It wasn't me!

In short, and to avoid wandering through more of the process than is necessary, expect the prone qualifying score to be somewhere between 589 and 591. The Olympic MQS is 587, and I would hope that someone on that score would be offered a chance to go and to shoot the MQS over there, as it would be good for the sport as a whole to get more people exposed and experienced.

dCorbus

MQS?

Minimum Qualifying Score? I presume.:o

Am I understanding this at all: You need to shoot roughly 3 points (or so) higher than an Olympic Minimum Qualifying Score to be allowed travel?

Or am I totally misunderstanding this entirely?:o

Kinda had it sussed, until MQS's were mentioned!:D

Sparks

It wasn't me! wrote: »

Aye, it's not much of a jacket anymore alright. Decided on a replacement yet? Presumably you'd be having new trousers made too?

Yes and yes. Thrashed it out in here, in fact, a while back:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055753854

It wasn't me!

dCorbus wrote: »

MQS?

Minimum Qualifying Score? I presume.:o

Am I understanding this at all: You need to shoot roughly 3 points (or so) higher than an Olympic Minimum Qualifying Score to be allowed travel?

Or am I totally misunderstanding this entirely?:o

Kinda had it sussed, until MQS's were mentioned!:D

Yes. The NTSA's minimum qualifying score is different to the Olympic MQS, and follows the formula I detailed above. The Olympic MQS is somewhat more arbitrary, but it would make a useful second tier for qualifications.

dCorbus

Thanks IWM.
Still kinda confused by that - but guess there must be a good reason.
Either way, it's not something I need be worrying my head about just yet.

Sparks

dCorbus wrote: »

MQS?
Minimum Qualifying Score? I presume.:o

Yes, the ISSF has minimum scores you have to have hit in an international competition in order to qualify to go to the Olympic Games - those are the MQS scores.
(Mind you, hitting them doesn't get you a place in the Games; you have to win those slots by winning international matches. It's just that the slots go to the country, not the shooter, so say Shooter A wins a World Cup and Ireland gets a slot, but then Shooter A quits shooting and takes up tiddlywinks; the slot can be given to Shooter B, but Shooter B *must* have hit an MQS internationally).

There are, in larger World Cups, entire sections of the competition where the only point of entering is to hit an MQS - they're seperate from the main competition, and there are no prizes and a lower entry fee. Mostly, you'd see new shooters in there, gaining experience shooting in large matches.

Am I understanding this at all: You need to shoot roughly 3 points (or so) higher than an Olympic Minimum Qualifying Score to be allowed travel?

Sometimes far more than 3 points. It depends entirely on the match you want to go to, because the standard of competition is higher at a World Championships, say, than at Intershoot.

Seriously, I wrote all this up a while back, take a read (it explains the process and the thinking behind it):
http://10point9.ie/selection-for-international-teams/

It wasn't me!

Sparks wrote: »

Yes and yes. Thrashed it out in here, in fact, a while back:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055753854

Wasn't sure you were sticking with the Kustermann Fusion after the ISSF fluffy shíte that was going on. It looks a very good jacket, would say you'll do well with it. Have to say though, my Thune Adventure is still a hell of a jacket for the price. Hard to go wrong with any from Sauer, AHG, Thune or Kustermann it seems.

dCorbus

Seriously, I wrote all this up a while back, take a read (it explains the process and the thinking behind it)

Yep, thanks, read that. But didn't see the bit about the MQS. I'll re-read it again in more detail.

There are, in larger World Cups, entire sections of the competition where the only point of entering is to hit an MQS - they're seperate from the main competition, and there are no prizes and a lower entry fee. Mostly, you'd see new shooters in there, gaining experience shooting in large matches.

But not from Ireland?

This has me all majorly confused. I'm lost.
Someone explain it to me in person over a pint or a coffee, sometime.

Or am I wearing my stupid hat this evening?:rolleyes::o

Sparks

It wasn't me! wrote: »

Wasn't sure you were sticking with the Kustermann Fusion after the ISSF fluffy shíte that was going on.

Well, ISSF haven't made their minds up yet it seems, and with Debevec on the athlete's board, we might see that digger stalled for a while. Frankly, the decision never made a lick of sense - Parish, who was one of the people most strongly pushing to get rid of them, was the first person I ever met to point out the fact that canvas ought to be banned because it can break the ISSF rules regarding properties of the material not altering with temperature changes.

(For non-ISSF folk, it's allowed because it's not hugely sensitive to temperature, you'd have to change temperature by ten to twenty degrees to notice; that won't happen during a match from body heat, though it will happen during a competitive season that goes from winter in Munich to summer in Fort Benning, Georgia)

my Thune Adventure is still a hell of a jacket for the price

Yeah, but wasn't that the jacket that got one of the English team disqualified in Dehli?

Sparks

dCorbus wrote: »

But not from Ireland?

No, we don't send people abroad just to shoot MQSs, we enter them in the main competition when they go to a World Cup, because generally by the time you get sent to a World Cup, you'll have been to smaller matches and will have built up enough experience that there wouldn't be much point to the exercise.

This has me all majorly confused. I'm lost.
Someone explain it to me in person over a pint or a coffee, sometime.
Or am I wearing my stupid hat this evening?:rolleyes::o

No, it takes a read-through or two. It's simple enough once it clicks, but awkward until then.
The thing is, while it's more involved than the old system, it's also better for one reason, namely, it assures the shooter that hard work is all that’s needed to earn the green jersey – it’s what you can do, not who you know.

dCorbus

Thanks,

Ahhhh, I see.....(I think).......so you can still go to the "MQS" shoots (for lack of a better term) and other shoots, off your own bat, in the meantime to get practice and higher-level competition time in, but as an Individual but not representing Ireland?

It wasn't me!

Sparks wrote: »

Yeah, but wasn't that the jacket that got one of the English team disqualified in Dehli?

He does seem to have been wearing one, but it looks pretty new, and I reckon mine would comfortably get through the stiffness tests by now. His problems were made worse by the fact that as a prone shooter, some crucial panels for stiffness testing never get broken in the way they need to. If you're shooting in standing or 3P, the jacket won't have any problems. We'll run EC sometime on mine and see how it goes.

It wasn't me!

dCorbus wrote: »

Thanks,

Ahhhh, I see.....(I think).......so you can still go to the "MQS" shoots (for lack of a better term) and other shoots, off your own bat, in the meantime to get practice and higher-level competition time in, but as an Individual but not representing Ireland?

Not as I understand it. It's still a world cup and still requires the NGB's involvement, but it's a lower entry cost and there are no prizes available. The only thing you can do is post the MQS and you don't get an elimination match and a qualification match, so the exposure is less. Not a huge amount of point, basically. If you're going, you might as well go in the full match, get the extra shoot out of it (hopefully) and post the MQS there anyway, as it'll still count.

Sparks

dCorbus wrote: »

Ahhhh, I see.....(I think).......so you can still go to the "MQS" shoots (for lack of a better term) and other shoots, off your own bat, in the meantime to get practice and higher-level competition time in, but as an Individual but not representing Ireland?

Sadly, no. For ISSF World Cups, the ISSF requires that you be on your National Team.
There's no reason you couldn't ask to be sent to the MQS segment of the match, but you'd still have to hit the qualifying score to go, and the qualifying score is almost always a few points higher than the MQS, so there'd be little point; and besides which, going to the MQS part of a World Cup to gain experience would be like getting into a Formula 5 car to learn to drive instead of a Formula 1 car. You'd be far better off working up through the IoM/Bisley matches to matches like Intershoot and the Europeans, and then on to World Cups; by which time there wouldn't be anything you hadn't seen already.
It's just a case of walking before you run.

You can go to IoM/Bisley shoots off your own bat... and a few of the Intershoot-level matches (Intershoot is at a bit of a crossroads in terms of the level of match it is, it's like the gateway match to the international scene - you'll find National teams there and Club teams).

Sparks

It wasn't me! wrote: »

He does seem to have been wearing one, but it looks pretty new, and I reckon mine would comfortably get through the stiffness tests by now. His problems were made worse by the fact that as a prone shooter, some crucial panels for stiffness testing never get broken in the way they need to. If you're shooting in standing or 3P, the jacket won't have any problems. We'll run EC sometime on mine and see how it goes.

Yeah, it should be okay - it's just, well, Thune. EC people see new Thune kit and wince, it's a reflex

MiGiD

having had enough badgering from IWM, I have finally expressed an interest in doing the Women's 50m Prone at the European Championships.

Now all I need:
-a legal jacket
-time to train
-a coach
-core training
-to learn to shoot outdoors (I have only shot outdoors three times)
-to learn to shoot in general
etc... etc...

ugh

It wasn't me!

MiGiD wrote: »

having had enough badgering from IWM, I have finally expressed an interest in doing the Women's 50m Prone at the European Championships.

Now all I need:
-a legal jacket
-time to train
-a coach
-core training
-to learn to shoot outdoors (I have only shot outdoors three times)
-to learn to shoot in general
etc... etc...

ugh

Excellent. The goal is half the battle. The rest is sorted handily enough then.

Bananaman

MiGiD wrote: »

having had enough badgering from IWM, I have finally expressed an interest in doing the Women's 50m Prone at the European Championships.

Now all I need:
-a legal jacket
-time to train
-a coach
-core training
-to learn to shoot outdoors (I have only shot outdoors three times)
-to learn to shoot in general
etc... etc...

ugh

well done

outdoor shooting is the same as indoor shooting except the lights go off on their own. ;-)

B'Man

It wasn't me!

Bananaman wrote: »

well done

outdoor shooting is the same as indoor shooting except the lights go off on their own. ;-)

B'Man

And up and down and round about, and there are those pesky breezes, too.

IRLConor

Bananaman wrote: »

outdoor shooting is the same as indoor shooting except the lights go off on their own. ;-)

On the plus side, you don't have to keep feeding the meter to keep the sun up.



Yesterday's result gave me the necessary kick up the arse, so I've stuck my hat in the ring for next year's World Cup.

Coronal

Finally got off my lazy arse and started training. EoI in for Munich (prone, 3p, and air) and Europeans (3p and prone)

Kryten

About another 30 points to add to my averages, before I would even consider putting myself forward for the Pistol events. I do intend to cut my teeth at the Isle of Man Easter Shooting festival. I will get into some serious training for this in the new year. PP1, Service Pistol, Standard Pistol ISSF Centerfire pistol and WA1500.

Coronal

I'm not going to say what I need to add to my air rifle average so :P

The way I see it, even if I don't make the score, it should give me a good kick up the arse to get some good training done, as well as providing a goal to work towards. Fortunately, my shooting seems not to have deteriorated since I last shot, which is most encouraging