ISSF World Championships Underway in Munich

While much of the American shooting community is focused on the National Championships in Camp Perry, Ohio, nearly 2500 of the world’s top shooters are competing in Munich, Germany in the 50th ISSF World Shooting Championships which concludes August 11, 2010.

The 50th World Shooting Championship opened in Munich, Germany on the 30th of July with a festive Opening Ceremony on Munich’s iconic Marien-platz. This is the largest World Shooting Championship ever — with 2,460 shooters from 103 countries competing for medals in 54 events. Competitors will also vie for 69 Olympic Quotas allowing their respective nations’ teams to compete at the 2012 Games in London.

At the ISSF World Championships, disciplines include Air Rifle, Air Pistol, Smallbore Rifle, Smallbore Pistol, Running Target, 300m Rifle, and Trap, with classes for Men, Women, and Juniors. So far Americans have done well, with high individual placings and a team win in the mens’ 50m rimfire prone event (see photo). The 50m mens’ prone team, consisting of Matt Emmons, SGT Michael McPhail, and SFC Eric Uptagrafft, won its second consecutive World Championship.

The ISSF-Sports.org website provides extensive coverage of the ISSF World Championships, including video webcasts of the finals in many disciplines. There are numerous photo galleries where you can see the shooters and high-tech air rifles and rimfire rifles used by the top shooters from many countries.

• Start Page for all ISSF Championship Events, with links to results, photos, and videos
• ISSF World Championship Photo Gallery (select photos with navigation tools below images)
• ISSF World Championship Video Page (includes competition footage — click thumbnails)

Running Target Competition is Fun to Watch
At the ISSF Worlds, one of the most challenging events is the Running Target Competition. Since this is not an Olympic shooting discipline, you may have never seen it before. But we guarantee this is worth checking out. Shooting in a man vs. man format, pairs of shooters engage a quickly moving target at 10 meters with air rifles. But the scoring is like tennis. For each pair of shots (one by each shooter), the competitor who puts his shot closest to dead center gets one point, while his opponent gets nothing. This is all done offhand from the standing position, requiring superb holding skills. It’s hard enough to shoot “10s” when the target is fixed. Imagine trying to put a pellet in a tiny 10-Ring, when the target is moving! To watch the Running Target Finals, CLICK this LINK then select the “Medal Match 10m Running Target Men” video from the list at the right. Forward to the 28-minute mark for the final Gold Medal shoot-out between Russia and China.

Team USA photo by Wolfgang Schreiber, ©2010 ISSF