Indians For Guns

Hello everybody,

I do not know how the clubs are rated in India. But in France, we have a club rating like 1st division, 2nd division etc.
There are 5 divisions; 1st Division (1st to 20th club rankwise), 2nd Division (21st to 40th) & 3rd Division (41st to 60th). The 4th (61st to 80th) is called 'Division of honour' and the rest (81st to the end) is called 'Promotional Division'.
It is more like the Football clubs and it's league.

Now how does one classify? Every year we have club championships in Air Pistol and Air Rifle (10m) right from the district level. To participate, a club has to present a team of 5 shooters either in AP or AR or both. There has to be at least ONE lady shooter or ONE junior shooter. There can not be more than 2 high level shooters (The top 20 shooters of France be it Senior, Junior or Women).
The match is of 4 hours where each of the 5 shooters has to shoot 30 shots. A total of 150 shots in 4 hours. There is no individual time constraint. Once the starting whistle is blown you have 4 hours to shoot 150 shots (30 shots x 5 shooters). In the district level, the top two clubs will play the final in what we call a DUEL.
Top individual scorer of Club A vs Top individual scorer of Club B
2nd of Club A vs 2nd of club B
and so on
On command of the judge, they will go for a shoot off. The time given is 1 minute per shot. Once the shot is over, the cards are brought back to be verified. Club A wins and earns 1 point if at least three of it's shooters have won against their respective adversaries or vice versa. The club which reaches 4 points first wins the Duel.
In the Regional level, the first 8 clubs go for Duels after the preliminary round.
A: 1st vs 8th
B: 2nd vs 7th
C: 3rd vs 6th
D: 4th vs 5th
Then the winner of A faces the winner of C and the winner of B faces the winner of D
The last two winners go for the final duel. The losers go for the 3rd place duel.

After the regional level match, the final national classification is made on the basis of the points of the preliminary rounds in the regional round. There is a national level championship of the 1st and the 2nd division only.

The funny thing is that a 1st division club will always stay in the 1st division until dethroned by a 2nd division club only, having scored more (it can not be removed by a 3rd division or lowly classified club even if they score more in the regional level)
In the 2nd division, the 5 clubs with the worst scores will be removed by the 5 top scorer clubs from the 3rd, 4th and the 5th division combined.

All I can say that it is a very challenging affair to participate in the club championships. It is fun, it charges you up and you feel a sense of high responsibility. It is very different from an individual match and it happens to be a very favourite affair of mine.

May be someday, we will be able to do something similar in India.

best regards
tirpassion

As far as i know we haven't had anything of this sort in our club.(madurai rifle club)
regards

Tirpassion

Its probably not as organised here but there is a basic structure. Local clubs, district level associations etc....

I am wondering how many competitions you folks have and at what frequency ? Particularly in the clubs which are not in the top 3 or top 4 categories.

I am interested in knowing, say a level 4 or level 5 club : How many matches it has in a year, they could be friendly matches or matches which will help clubs in improving their ranking in your community, weekly matches ? monthly matches ? what are the match plans etc.......

Thanks

M.

tirpassion wrote:Hello everybody,

I do not know how the clubs are rated in India. But in France, we have a club rating like 1st division, 2nd division etc.
There are 5 divisions; 1st Division (1st to 20th club rankwise), 2nd Division (21st to 40th) & 3rd Division (41st to 60th). The 4th (61st to 80th) is called 'Division of honour' and the rest (81st to the end) is called 'Promotional Division'.
It is more like the Football clubs and it's league.

Now how does one classify? Every year we have club championships in Air Pistol and Air Rifle (10m) right from the district level. To participate, a club has to present a team of 5 shooters either in AP or AR or both. There has to be at least ONE lady shooter or ONE junior shooter. There can not be more than 2 high level shooters (The top 20 shooters of France be it Senior, Junior or Women).
The match is of 4 hours where each of the 5 shooters has to shoot 30 shots. A total of 150 shots in 4 hours. There is no individual time constraint. Once the starting whistle is blown you have 4 hours to shoot 150 shots (30 shots x 5 shooters). In the district level, the top two clubs will play the final in what we call a DUEL.
Top individual scorer of Club A vs Top individual scorer of Club B
2nd of Club A vs 2nd of club B
and so on
On command of the judge, they will go for a shoot off. The time given is 1 minute per shot. Once the shot is over, the cards are brought back to be verified. Club A wins and earns 1 point if at least three of it's shooters have won against their respective adversaries or vice versa. The club which reaches 4 points first wins the Duel.
In the Regional level, the first 8 clubs go for Duels after the preliminary round.
A: 1st vs 8th
B: 2nd vs 7th
C: 3rd vs 6th
D: 4th vs 5th
Then the winner of A faces the winner of C and the winner of B faces the winner of D
The last two winners go for the final duel. The losers go for the 3rd place duel.

After the regional level match, the final national classification is made on the basis of the points of the preliminary rounds in the regional round. There is a national level championship of the 1st and the 2nd division only.

The funny thing is that a 1st division club will always stay in the 1st division until dethroned by a 2nd division club only, having scored more (it can not be removed by a 3rd division or lowly classified club even if they score more in the regional level)
In the 2nd division, the 5 clubs with the worst scores will be removed by the 5 top scorer clubs from the 3rd, 4th and the 5th division combined.

All I can say that it is a very challenging affair to participate in the club championships. It is fun, it charges you up and you feel a sense of high responsibility. It is very different from an individual match and it happens to be a very favourite affair of mine.

May be someday, we will be able to do something similar in India.

best regards
tirpassion

Hello fantumfan,

It is true that we have many shooting clubs in France compared to India but quite less compared to Germany for example.
In our Region 'Ile de France' (Paris is a part of it) the population is about 9 million. We see 31 to 33 clubs in the Regional level of Club Competition (those who have qualified and gone past the district level). There are those who do not qualify and there are those who can not field a team (like our club can not field a Air Rifle team because we do not have 5 more or less good rifle shooters). I believe that there should be more than 50 clubs in our region (I am not 100% sure). What I know for sure is, there are about 1.2 lakh FFTir (equivalent body of NRAI in India) affiliated shooters and about 13 lakhs of licensed hunters in France.

We have shooting seasons. The winter is for 10m. The spring will bring the weapons outside 25/50m. The end of spring and summer skeet / double trap and muzzleloaders. But as a discipline, the 10m practice continues because it is the base.

In the 10m season which starts from September, many clubs organise competitions. From early October to 20th December and again from early January to mid February you will have a local club level competition almost in every weekend. In between, there is the District level championships in a weekend and the Regionals in another weekend. In February the Nationals are held. These are official competitions. So we have a lot of options. In general, I participate in about 6 to 8 club level competitions and the official ones to the Regional level because I have not crossed this level to go to the Nationals as yet.

The shooters are divided in categories according to their age.
9 & 10 yrs: Poussin
11 & 12 yrs: Benjamin
13 &14 yrs: Minime
15 to 17 years: Cadet
18 to 20 yrs: Junior
21 to 45 yrs: Senior 1 (men) Dame 1 (women)
46 to 60 yrs: Senior 2 (men) Dame 2 (women)
61 onwards: Senior 3 (men) Dame 3 (women)
The same goes for the women also.

In all competitions these categories are followed and the ranking is done category wise. The most difficult category is obviously the S1 (for men) and D1 (for women). Every year, in individual event, every shooter has to pass through
1. Departementaux (District level official competition): In AP this year the cut-off score was 512/600 in Senior 1 category to qualify for the
2. Regionnnaux (Regional level official competition): In AP this year the cut-off score was 559/600 in Senior 1 category to qualify for the Nationals.

We do not have any qualifying score to attain. It works on a quota basis. In our Regional level there is a quota of 100 shooters in AP Senior 1 category. The top 100 scores were selected after all the district level matches in respective districts. It stopped at 512. Similarly, there are 85 places only for the AP Senior 1 category in the Nationals. The top 85 scores from all over France were selected after all the Regional level competitions throughout France. The cut-off score was 559/600. There are shooters who did not qualify even after having achieved 559/600. Why?
When there is a tie in score, the last series is considered. The one who has a better last series score qualifies. If the last series score is same again, the last but one (5th) series will be judged and so on.

Having said that, we should not underestimate the other categories. The cut-off score for the Nationals in S2 (46 to 60 yrs) was 553/600 this year and in S3 category (above 60 years) it was 539/600. The topper in the S3 category scored 564/600 (he is 68 yrs old).

Now some numbers to resume the Regional level Competition in the men's event only.
Senior 1: A total of 741 shooters participated all over France in AP. Top 85 qualified for the Nationals.
Senior 2: A total of 918 shooters participated all over France in AP. Top 85 qualified for the Nationals.
Senior 3: A total of 657 shooters participated all over France in AP. Top 85 qualified for the Nationals.

Unlike in India, one does not definitely attain the national status after having scored a certain score during the nationals. Every shooter has to pass through the district and regional levels of competitions every year.

Hope all these informations will give you a better idea.

best regards and enjoy 2011 to the fullest!
tirpassion

tirpassion,

Thanks for the detailed explanation. I'd say out here its score based. A certain minimum score is required to play at a certain level or competition.

M.

Hello Friends,

This year we reached the 3rd division in 10m AP shooting. We just missed the 2nd division by a whisker. In fact we are the top rated club this year in the 3rd division. It has been a significant achievement to reach the 3rd div from the last division.

regards
tirpassion