Inclusivity in Shooting Sport

Still considered a predominately male sport, shooting has a long history of gender equality. As far as Olympic disciplines go, the first woman to participate in an open world championship event was Catherine Woodring. In 1937, she shot for team USA that went on to claim gold in the 50 m rifle prone team event. Since then, rules have been constantly changing and adapting to female participants. In 1966, the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) “recognized all of its open events as ‘mixed‘ events where women could participate with men […]. The IOC also agreed to apply this standard to Olympic shooting events. For four Olympiads, from 1968 through 1980, the Olympic shooting events were mixed, with opportunities for women and men to participate regardless of gender” (issf-sports.org) In 1980, the ISSF established the ISSF Women’s Committee and, in 1984, three women events were added to the Olympic Games Programme. In 2018, the ISSF announced that the World Cup events have reached perfect gender balance: it now features six men events, six women events and three mixed team events.

What is more, shooting is one of the rare sports in which the results of men and women are perfectly comparable. A quick comparison of the most recent World Cup (Cairo 2022) reveals that, for example, in the 50 m 3 positions events, the highest scoring woman was Jenny Stene (NOR) with 594 points (while 585 points was the lowest score to reach the finals) and the highest scoring male athlete was Jon-Hermann Hegg (NOR) with 591 points (and 584 points was the limit to enter the final stage).