Recent changes in women’s Olympic shooting and effects in performance

Abstract

In 2018, the Olympic shooting regulations were modified to increase the number of women’s shots from 40 to 60, equaling the number given to men. This research presented in this paper addresses two research issues: (1) has the performance of women’s shooting changed as a result of this increase in the number of shots? and (2) with the equalized number of shots in place, do women and men perform differently? This study included 292 shooters who competed in the 2016 and/or 2018 European Championships who all obtained top-50 results. Our sample included balanced quotas for sports (50% pistol and 50% rifle) and by category (50% women and 50% men). Both championships were held in the same facilities and in the same month of the season, but with the difference that in 2016, women had 40 shots and in 2018 they had 60 shots. We observed that women’s performances did not diminish for the pistol or the rifle category when their number of shots were increased. Men and women shot equally well with rifles, although the men’s performance with pistols was higher than that of women. We concluded that sports in which physical strength is a minor factor, as in the case of shooting, should revise their regulations in the interest of greater gender equality in sports.

Pistol and Rifle Performance: Gender and Relative Age Effect Analysis

“…Normally, these performance differences (around 10%) are due to the genetic profile, which implies hormonal, anthropometrical and physiological differences [6]. In Olympic shooting, after the last regulatory changes made by the ISSF following the IOC committee advice regarding gender equality in sports [1,2] the need to investigate shooting performance in depth has been suggested [3,4].…”

“…Regarding the shooting performance comparison between men and women, Mon-López, Tejero-González and Calero [3] revealed that men obtain better results in pistol shooting than women; however, there were no performance differences between men and women in rifle shooting. Similarly, Goldschmied and Kowalczyk [4] found no differences between gender in Olympic rifle events (air rifle and small-bore rifle), and Kemnitz et al [5] found no differences in military rifle shooting.…”

“…Recently, the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) has changed the shooting sport rules, matching the number of shots between men and women [1] following the IOC committee advice regarding gender equality in sports [2]. This change was analysed by Mon-López et al [3] who concluded that the increase in shots did not mean a decrease in women's sports performance. However, the need to investigate shooting performance in depth was discussed, not only to analyse global samples but to analyse the subsamples of a range of competition results as other authors have previously suggested [4].…”

“…Physical demands do not appear to be as decisive in shooting as in other individual sports [3,4]. For this reason, it could be thought that RAE is not a key factor for elite shooters and top championship participation as it is in other sports [20].…”

“…According to the literature, there is limited knowledge on gender influence on performances in pistol and rifle events, especially when performance is analysed by competition range positions, where the need for more studies has been suggested previously [3]. Furthermore, as far as we know, there are no in-depth studies that have analysed the relationship between RAE and elite shooters' performances.…”