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THE ESC PRESIDENT SENDS A LETTER OF SUPPORT TO THE ISSF RECOMMENDATIONS ON THE 2020 OLYMPIC SHOOTING PROGRAM

Mr. Vladimir Lisin, President of the European Shooting Confederation, has sent a circular letter to the ESC Member Federations expressing support to the ISSF recommendations on the 2020 Olympic Shooting Program. The letter says:

Dear Colleagues,


At the 2016 ISSF General Assembly some European Federations contributed to the negative outcome of the voting on approval of the new version of the ISSF Constitution. What are the results? We could not modernize the life inside the shooting community. Nothing constructive has been proposed since then.


I am not going to analyse ambitions of certain personalities who conduct destructive activity in their political interests. It looks like they can’t be changed. But the situation repeats itself. Now a call for an Extraordinary General Assembly is being initiated which, like previously, will not bring anything positive.


The explanations are simple:


1.   Nobody will give us more than 15 events in the Olympic Program. The IOC has no intention to increase the scale of the Olympic Games till infinity. Otherwise they will last several months. Any other International Federation will argue if the ISSF suddenly decides to increase the shooting part of the Olympic Program at its expense.

2.   We have to follow the Olympic Charter and comply with the recommendations of gender equality. It means, to guarantee equality between men and women not only in the number of participating athletes but in the possibility to win a medal, as well.

3.   Any proposal to change the content of the Olympic shooting program, to substitute or to eliminate one or another event, will lead inevitably, same as now, to appearance of offended or unhappy persons within the shooting community and the industry. It will never be possible to find total consensus in such a delicate matter.


That is why our main goals are:


1.   To save 15 events in the Olympic Program.

2.   To comply with recommendations of Agenda-2020.

3.   To think about the future that dictates the necessity to develop new formats, Mixed Gender Team events, Team events which will be spectacular and able to prove their popularity.


I am addressing those of you who, like me, defend the democratic ways of the ISSF management. However, in the present case the democratic way of development may bring us to a dead end. Now it is impossible, even harmful, to start changing the recommendations done to the IOC by the ISSF Executive Committee and the Administrative Council. In the future we will have a chance to show flexibility each time proposing to include in the program of the next Olympic Games those events that are most interesting to the public and the athletes.


That is why I call on all those who are misled by the false arguments to send the ISSF urgently, within the next two days, a refusal from their appeal to convene an Extraordinary General Assembly. I also ask those who did not support the idea of such a General Assembly from the very beginning, to inform the ISSF and the ESC about it in written form.


P.S. I am not happy either with the elimination of certain events. But each discipline, each event has to permanently prove its popularity and the right to be kept in the Olympic Program. In case a discipline or an event is not included once, it must have a chance to develop and, in case of success, a possibility to return to the Olympic Program.



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