Article 11 – 2022 (December)

Australian Shooter Magazine

Question and Answers

Article 11 – 2022 (December)

Question:  I am keen to hear your views on the Shooting program that was included for the 2026 Victorian Commonwealth Games? No full bore events, no rimfire pistol or rifle competitions and no Skeet. Is this a win for us or the beginning of the end?

Robert Chambers, Ivanhoe VIC

Answer:  I guess there are two ways to look at this. There was a possibility that no shooting events at all were going to be included into the sports program for the 2026 Commonwealth Games. This year, as I am sure you were fully aware, Birmingham abolished the entire Shooting program so if you look at it that way then to have some firearm events back in the mix is a massive win for us.

If you are a Full Bore shooter then you would have every right to feel abandoned. This event was one of the most popular and traditional events on the shooting program at a Commonwealth Games. I am shocked it didn’t get the go ahead for Victoria. All rimfire events in rifle and pistol have also been overlooked as have half the shotgun events with the Skeet event being excluded. For an aspiring competitor in any of these events it is a terrible outcome and some might suggest as you have, that it is the “beginning of the end” for Shooting as an event at major sporting events like the Commonwealth Games and indeed the Olympics.

I am not sure how the decision was made as to which events were kept as opposed to those that were culled. Unbelievably Australia sent not a solitary junior athlete to the recent World Championships in Croatia for the Skeet competition and no men were entered either with just one woman competing so not having a Skeet event at the Commonwealth Games may seem logical. This is an argument I certainly do not agree with, but the reality is that building the ranks back up once again appears to be simply too hard for the good folks at Shooting Australia.

The real problem is for many people they  that may have been considering taking up Skeet, Full Bore or purchasing a rimfire pistol with the intention of seriously making a national team down the road, they are probably now getting advised by their friends to re-consider that decision and find another recreational activity to pursue in their spare time. I feel for the juniors and the parents in these disciplines that were excluded as their dreams have now been crushed. Depressingly it is simply another reason not to take up our sport which in the long term is disastrous to us all.

In saying all that I am still of the opinion that some shooting is better than no shooting, but I do understand the criticism and anger from some sections of our shooting community for this view. The common complaint is that we should stand united or fall as one. That is good in theory, but asking the Trap shooters or the Air Pistol competitors to boycott the Games is as likely to happen as you getting hit on the head by Halley’s comet driving home from work tomorrow. Our medal tally at the Games will certainly be hurt because at Commonwealth level Australia had a long history of athletes visiting the winner’s dais in all of the events that have been over looked.

Another factor that is also quite bewildering is that the 2026 Commonwealth Games were being touted as the “rural” games. If ever a full shooting program would have been supported by the Australian public it would have been when these events were being conducted in a rural community. Shotgun has its state shooting centre for Victoria located in the border city of Echuca so the country areas still may get some action, but as to where air pistol and rifle would now be held is not clear as yet. I hope the State Government are true to their word and hold these events in rural Victoria so hopefully a shooting range somewhere will get updated and the shooting sports will see some legacy. It would be a travesty of justice if these events are simply given to existing Melbourne venues.

I am sorry I can’t answer the political motivation as to why the Shooting sports were excluded from Birmingham and only half were added back in Victoria. I can confidently say that if India decided to apply for the Commonwealth Games in 2030 then a complete Shooting program will be offered as I expect the Brisbane Olympics will offer, with the exception of Full Bore, in 2032. After that I am not so confident.