Paris Olympics 2024: Rising shooting scores stir debate and controversy
There has been a heated debate about the rising shooting scores among Indian players at the Paris Olympics 2024. Shooting legends have pointed out that modern technology has played a significant role.
German coach Heinz Reinkemeier seems surprised about the significant surge in shooting scores. Back in 2019, when he watched the Indian junior rifle team scoring, it was something he had never seen before even at his academy in Dortmund. Mystified by the high scores, he suspected their shooting attire.
Reinkemeier borrowed Elavenil Valarivan's shooting jacket and was able to produce a 390 out of 400 with it — remarkable for someone who hadn't shot competitively in almost 40 years. It proved that he was theoretically correct that modern outfits have a lot to do with rising shooting scores.
If average scores in the 10m air rifle event increase drastically in 2024, world record qualification scores will rise to 637.9 for men and 636.3 for women.
The cut-off scores for finals at the 2024 ISSF World Cup in Munich were quite significant for both men and women, as against the cut-off scores reached in 2021. This is a huge jump from the 2021 score of 627.7 for men and 628.2 for women. In comparison, the Tokyo Olympics cutoffs of 629.2 for men and 628.5 for women were quite modest. The German coach was quoted as saying by Sportstar:
“It’s been nearly 40 years since I shot competitively, and despite my age and the time away from the sport, 30 out of my 40 shots landed inside the 10-point ring. I felt an incredible advantage.”
Given the debate, Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar is one example who made it to the Paris Olympics 2024 in a Capapie jacket and exhibited how little room these jackets offer for errors. Improvements in shooting suits are behind rising scores, according to Olympic gold medalist Ginny Thrasher, who said the score rise was greater for air rifles compared to air pistols. The gold medalist in the women's rifle event in the Rio Olympics added:
“Scores naturally go up over time with technological advancements and more knowledge of training, but the rise in the last five years in shooting has been extraordinary. It is undoubtedly because of the changes in suits.”
Literally an exoskeleton, the jackets support the back of the shooter and reduce the effort needed to maintain position, coming very close to an exoskeleton in and of themselves.
Introduced in 2018, the Capapie NSG Top Line Jacket has been recognized as one of the top guns for elite shooters. Featuring 25 segments to serve different purposes, including stiff sections that provide stability, the jacket meets ISSF standards on both thickness and stiffness.
Stiff segments and extra seams that back up the stitching give it a solid framework that supplants the past favorites from Germany and Korea. Every medal winner at the 2022 and 2023 World Championships was clad in a Capapie jacket.
These developments raised questions about the future of the sport, specifically ahead of the Paris Olympics 2024. With the new jackets, the age of shooters is going down, with record scores being posted by younger athletes.
Hungarian shooter István Péni speculates that this technology has closed the gap between top shooters and others. But at a price of over $1000 for the jackets, the question is who can afford them, and hence it becomes one of equity. Being one of the shooters to join the outfit debate ahead of the Paris Olympics 2024, he added:
“There’s no margin for error currently. You need to be on top of your game and you also have to be lucky."
Paris Olympics 2024: Shooters Abhinav Bindra compares modern shooting to T20 cricket, Joydeep Kumar finds no issue as scores are improving
Abhinav Bindra, the first Indian to win an individual gold medal at the Olympics (2008) said there needs to be a balance between the advancement in technology and the integrity of the sport. He added that with the current way of scoring, it is no different from watching a T20 cricket match, where technology has a huge say in performance.
He was quoted as saying (via Sportstar):
“If you look back a decade, a score of 10 or 9 on the final shot could mean the difference between winning and making it to the finals. It was neck-and-neck and interesting in that sense. But now, with scores like 636 and 637, that averages out to a little over 10.6 per shot, it’s starting to feel more like a video game.”
Joydeep Karmakar, a Kolkata-based Indian shooter, also commented on the issue ahead of the Paris Olympics 2024.
“In the past, shooters had superior internal body position, where the architecture of their stance along with support from their jackets helped them remain stable. Now, it’s the other way around: the jacket is like an exoskeleton, an outer shell controlling positioning from the outside," Karmakar said. "However, if the scores are improving and following all the rules, then I’m not really sure what the problem is.”
Some fear that in the long run, this could actually harm the sport. The legendary shooters believe administrators must rethink their decision regarding the use of advanced jackets after the Paris Olympics 2024.
The question is will this debate further intensify after the score surge during the Paris Olympics 2024?