The ISSF Ad-Hoc Committee, meeting in Munich, Germany, released today its recommendations to establish gender equality in the Olympic Program. These recommendations are in response to the requirements of the International Olympic Committee’s Agenda 2020. The IOC is now working with International Federations “to achieve 50 per cent female participation in the Olympic Games and to stimulate women’s participation and involvement in sport by creating more participation opportunities at the Olympic Games” by Tokyo 2020. The IOC is also encouraging “the inclusion of mixed-gender team events,”– consisting in one male and one female athlete competing for the same nation.
Shooting currently has nine men´s events and six women’s events on the Olympic program so major change is necessary. In order to respond to these challenges, ISSF President Olegario Vazquez Raña – with ISSF Executive Committee and ISSF Administrative Council approval – appointed a special “Ad-hoc” Committee composed of ISSF leaders to prepare recommendations to achieve gender equality in Shooting. Secretary General Franz Schreiber chairs the Committee, which includes ISSF Vice-Presidents Gary Anderson, Wang Yifu and Vladimir Lisin, as well as representatives of athletes and coaches, and other discipline experts.
The ISSF decision process started in 2015. Since then the Ad-Hoc Committee has met three times and conducted a detailed analysis of the actual events. The process has involved all ISSF Section Committees (Athletes, Coaches, Shotgun, Rifle, Pistol and Technical) in their evaluation of several different alternatives and proposals.
The first decision of the Ad-Hoc Committee was to preserve discipline parity and retain 15 Olympic shooting events – 5 Rifle, 5 Pistol, 5 Shotgun. Each of the three disciplines currently has three men’s events and two women’s events in the Olympic program. The Committee decided that the best way to achieve gender equality was to convert one men’s event in each discipline to a mixed gender team event. Many different proposals were introduced for the events to be changed, considering factors such as universality, sport presentation, grass-roots development and sustainability. Many mixed gender team events proposals were also evaluated, with specific consideration given to their potential to support the worldwide development of Shooting.
After concluding an exhaustive evaluation process, the ISSF Ad-Hoc Committee recommends replacing the Double Trap Men event with a Trap Mixed Gender Team event, the 50m Rifle Prone Men event with a 10m Air Rifle Mixed Gender Team event and the 50m Pistol Men event with a 10m Air Pistol Mixed Gender Team event. The path to this recommendation involved many difficult, emotional and courageous decisions by coaches, athletes, members of all Section Committees, ISSF leaders and many persons in the shooting community, who tried to act in the best interests of future generations in our sport while emphasizing the priority of keeping Shooting in the Olympic Games.
The ISSF is releasing the Ad-Hoc Committee recommendations so athletes, coaches, national federations and fans can be informed and offer their contributions to the discussion. These recommendations will again be studied by the Ad-Hoc Committee together with the IOC’s Rio 2016 event-based evaluation that will be released in January. The IOC analysis will consider a wide range of media and participation data. These recommendations will then be presented to the ISSF Executive Committee and Administrative Council. The Council will make a final decision on the recommendations that the ISSF must submit to the IOC by the end of February 2017. The IOC will make a final decision on the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Program in mid-2017.
Until we have a final decision by the IOC on the 2020 Olympic Program, the ISSF intends to keep all current events in the 2017 ISSF World Cup Series program, and to also conduct the proposed Mixed Gender Team events starting with the first 2017 ISSF World Cup Stage, in New Delhi, India. The events being replaced will continue to be conducted in all ISSF World Championships.