New Irish Times blog - time to get shooting into the Times?

Sparks

From the Irish Times website:

One small step for man, one giant leap for the Sports Dept
Noel O'Reilly

When our Dear Leader canvassed opinion on how irishtimes.com could be improved earlier this week the message coming from the masses was loud and clear. The single, most effective way to enhance the website for each and every one of our readers was simple. The answer, it appeared, was Metedata. And plenty of it.

Not having an inkling what metadata was – hey, who does? – the online editor scrolled further down the page where his eye was drawn to a solitary, lonely voice calling for a sports blog. Always one to champion the cause of the little man, the online editor’s interest was piqued. Plus it ticked boxes on so many levels.

Cheap? Tick. No problem to produce? Tick. Easily foisted upon the layabouts in the sports department? Tick. A handy way to stick this metadata stuff on the long finger? Tick.

And so it came to pass. What the boss man wants, the boss man invariably gets and from today various members of the sports team will be bringing you their take on all things, well, sporting. Having previously dipped our toes into the blogging waters during the Six Nations and World Cup, we’re going full-time. As always, these things don’t work without some healthy debate so any and all (within reason) comments are welcome.

Well, if they're looking for comment, how about the point that it would be a good thing for them to cover our sport?
Already posted up on that page in the comments:

Will this new blog finally see the Irish Times cover one of Ireland’s most successful Olympic sports, namely target shooting?

We’ve seen the shotgun team win the World Championships outright once and take the bronze a few years later, and individuals from the team have won the individual silver in the World Championships, and several gold, silver and bronze medals in dozens of European Championships and World Cups in the last decade; and the Times has consistently ignored them.

We’ve seen Irish seniors and juniors take medals at home and abroad in air rifle, in smallbore rifle, in air pistol and in several other Olympic disciplines, all to deafening silence from the Times.

We’ve seen the Irish Sports Council refuse to recognise our NGB when they were forced to withdraw from the target shooting umbrella body, making ours the only Olympic Sport NGB who are not recognised by the Council, even though they are fully recognised by the Olympic Council of Ireland, the Department of Justice (who consult with them on firearms legislation), the International Shooting Sports Federation (who govern Olympic target shooting), and several others. And yet, despite the coverage the Times has afforded lesser crises in the AAAI, we hear nothing from the Times about our problem.

It’s not even as though the Times has never heard of us; I’ve been personally hung up on by the Sports Editor when I tried putting all this to him a few years ago when I was on the committee.

So will this blog be bringing in a change in this policy of “We don’t do guns” (the Sports Editor’s actual words at the time) so we can see the world’s largest Olympic sport finally covered by the Times?

Maybe if we all posted something up there (and no, doesn't have to be on Olympic stuff, that's just my personal favorite), we'd see something. And if not, well feck it, how much does a comment on an internet website cost?

Cass

I see there is a question as to the validity of your statement that it is...............

........ one of Ireland's most successful Olympic sports............

.............. he (Noel O'Reilly) believes the amount of disciplines within a sport does not constitute a larger success rate. Or in his own words .......

......... To my mind, simply having multiple disciplines within a sport called “Olympic” doesn’t automatically translate to success at the Games themselves ..........

Anyone with a good knowledge of all medals/success care to rebut this?

Sparks

Sorted out the problem with the comment page, posted this:

<blockquote>As for the assertion that shooting is one of “Ireland’s most successful Olympic sports”. Is that really the case?</blockquote>

Yes, it is, from several points of view.

In terms of cost/benefit, Euro for Euro shooting is probably *the* most successful Olympic sport. The shotgun team have brought home dozens of international and world level medals (from the European Championships; the World Championships - which is both larger and of a higher competitive level than the Olympic Games, as in most sports; and from dozens of World Cups). The high performance director of the shotgun team has so impressed the ISSF that they've put him in charge of high-level shotgun training at the ISSF academy. We've sent athletes to every Olympics since Atlanta.

All this was achieved despite the lowest funding of any Olympic sport.

All this was achieved while labouring under draconian legislation which prevents athletes starting their training until six to eight years after all their competitors will have started theirs, which cripples the Junior side of the sport; as well as the hampering in day-to-day training that legislation introduces, compared to every other EU state.

All this was achieved by pure amateurs - there are no shooters in Ireland who don't have a day job to pay the bills.

All this was achieved by both men and women - shooting is the most gender-agnostic sport in the Games, and has a claim to be the most gender-agnostic sport anywhere.

All this was achieved by athletes of all ages - shooting is as free from prejudice over age as is physically possible.

And all this was achieved with a very small cadre of shooters. Because of the legislation we have to operate under and other restrictions, we can't start training as early as the Big Five, and we can't have as many clubs as the Big Five, or have people start off in our sport as easily as in the Big Five; the end result is that we've had only twenty to thirty international level shooters in the past decade on the Olympic side of things, compared to the thousands the Big Five have had in that time. So on pure medal count they can beat us; so long as you ignore their funding, their freedom from legislation, their freedom from age limitations for training, their freedom in setting up new clubs and their freedom when it comes to starting people off in their sport.

But when you have to resort to an unfair comparison like that to win... well, it's not really sporting, is it?

<blockquote>To my mind, simply having multiple disciplines within a sport called “Olympic” doesn’t automatically translate to success at the Games themselves. Or am I wrong?</blockquote>
I don't know if you're wrong, but I think you might want to talk to Swimming about that. They're usually the first sport highlighted when people lay this particular charge.

In shooting, by the way, it's not the case that one discipline is exactly like the others. They all use different equipment over different ranges at different targets requiring different training. Events are either shotgun, rifle or pistol-based; in shotgun the Trap and Skeet events are wildly different in terms of the rules, the speeds of the clay pigeons fired, and other factors; in Rifle you have both air and smallbore rifle which are completely different animals, and in Pistol as well. It's almost unheard of for anyone to shoot more than one kind of firearm at international level and do well (you do hear of people shooting different kinds of Rifle or different kinds of Pistol, but not Rifle *and* Pistol, or Rifle *and* Shotgun, and certainly not all three, not at this standard).

So the idea that we have one sport with artificial divisions to boost medal counts doesn't really apply. The disciplines are as different from each other as Soccer, Tennis and Golf and we're only really all put together as one because of administrative laziness - it's very similar to referring to the GAA, IRFU and FAI as "Ball Sports Ireland".

daveob007

I think it's about time we started toshow off our sporting successes instead of hiding away from public view.
we do need to get the message out that shooting is a great sport and very safe.

CJhaughey

daveob007 wrote: »

I think it's about time we started toshow off our sporting successes instead of hiding away from public view.
we do need to get the message out that shooting is a great sport and very safe.

Agreed, maybe the point of a 100% safety record should be mentioned more often.

It wasn't me!

That didn't last long!

Sparks

Seems to be still going (the blog, that is - the opening post seems to have scrolled off and isn't viewable anymore except by the direct link in the first post above); now what we need is to put in a report or two on an event...

It wasn't me!

Sparks wrote: »

Seems to be still going (the blog, that is - the opening post seems to have scrolled off and isn't viewable anymore except by the direct link in the first post above); now what we need is to put in a report or two on an event...

Upcoming qualifiers and subsequent matches? I only have the ISSF ones upcoming in my mind, but if there's shotgun stuff or other rifle and pistol stuff...

Sparks

That'd do the trick. Not sure when the InterShoot qualifiers are coming up, but I think they'll have to be the first up.

Bananaman

Remember that next year you also have

• WA1500 World Championships in Sweden
• Benchrest World Championships in the USA
• Gallery Rifle International Series in Uk, Germany, Ireland (and possibly South Africa)

and of course the big daddy

• IPSC World Shoot in Greece

B'Man

Sparks

Are we not more likely to see an Irish shooter place higher in the WA1500 than the IPSC shoot given the Michael was ranked 4th in the world in WA1500 last I looked?

Sparks

And Creedmoor is next year as well - that'll be a pretty major event if the PR's done right.

Bananaman

Indeed,

You do not have to have Irish Participants place highly or even be taking part for it to still be a major sporting event worthy of recognition.

Obviously for anyone that is taking part in any of those events, regardless of their final placing, it is a big deal.

There are classifications in WA1500, as well as a range of events, the same as most sports - so people will compete in their chosen events and will be competing within their own classification.

B'Man

Sparks

It's a big deal for the participants always; but newspapers want the local story (even when "local" in this case means "Ireland"). Hearing that a world-level sports event happened in another country and was won by someone from another country... doesn't really get much traction with editors unless it's a major event like the Olympics (and it really is a short list of major events).

If we can't tie it to home, they're not interested. And as you go from national to local newspapers, the principle remains true, only the definition of "local" changes.

Sparks

Bananaman wrote: »

There are classifications in WA1500, as well as a range of events, the same as most sports - so people will compete in their chosen events and will be competing within their own classification.

Which is why it's so hard to bring home ISSF medals - we don't do classification for International level competitions at all. It's one single open field.

Bananaman

Same with IPSC

B'Man