New shooting competition formats for Paris 2024

KARACHI: Secretary General National Rifle Association of Pakistan Razi Ahmed Khan has given an online presentation to the shooters of Asian region regarding the competition formats at the Olympic Games in Paris 2024.

Talking to ‘The News, he said that these formats were approved by the International Olympics Committee. Razi said that there will be five shotgun events in the 2024 Olympics, including individual events in skeet and trap and mixed team in skeet. “The reason behind this new version is to attract the attention of spectators and to create TV viewership which will attract sponsorship,” he said.

While explaining the rules in detail, he said that the skeet individual category has two stages: qualification and finals. The qualification has 125 targets and top eight athletes of the qualification stage move to the finals.

The medal match will be held among the top four athletes from relay 1 and relay 2. And in case of a tie in the Relay 1 and 2, a shoot-off will be played.

In the medal match, the first series has 10 doubles. The first to be eliminated will get the fourth place. The second series has five doubles and the medal will be bronze and the third series too has five doubles with gold and silver medals up for grabs.

During the medal match, before the total number of targets of the completed match ‘Golden Hit’ will be declared by the jury in charge and the gold and silver medal winners will be announced.

For mixed team event in the skeet category, the qualification stage will have three rounds with total 150 targets and four teams will qualify for the finals. In the finals, the match for gold and silver medals will be between top two teams and third and fourth ranked teams will vie for bronze medal.

In the medal match for the said category, alternate starting positions will be given to teams and the team that earns first six points will be declared winner while in case of tie of 5:5 the result will be decided by shoot-off.

In the individual category of trap event, the qualification stage will have five rounds with 125 targets and top eight will qualify for the final. The final stage will have two relays and the medal match will be played between top four athletes (top two from each relay).

In the relays 1 and 2, the first series will have 15 targets and the lowest scorer will be eliminated. The second series will have 10 targets and in case of tie after 25 targets shoot-off will decide the winners.

In the medal match of the said category, the first series will have 10 targets and the lowest scorer will get fourth place. For malfunction and protest, maximum time allowed is three minutes and maximum number of malfunctions is two during the final including shoot-offs.

Besides, non-verbal coaching is allowed during the finals and there will be only one time-out for one minute only for each team.