Learn › Track 07 · The ISSF circuit
Para shooting
A shooter rolls up to the firing line in a wheelchair, sets up, and fires 60 shots at a 10 m air pistol target. You have spent this whole course learning how that match works. How much of it would you have to relearn to coach them?
Think first: Compared with the 60-shot match you know, what changes most in para 10 m air pistol?
- Almost everything: a different target, distance and scoring
- Who may compete in which class, and the shooting position. The target, distance and match look very similar.
- Only the time limit
Para shooting in one paragraph
Para shooting is for athletes with an impairment. It is governed separately from the ISSF, with its own rulebook and its own classification system that groups athletes with similar levels of function so the competition is fair. Events are named with a code, such as P1, and a sport class, such as SH1.
Think first: You coach a club member who uses a wheelchair and wants to enter para competitions. Where do the rules for her events come from?
- The ISSF Rule Book alone
- A separate para sport rulebook, plus classification rules that decide her sport class
- Each national federation writes its own
The same match, adapted
If our sources are right, almost everything you learned about the match transfers. Scoring works as in How a shot is scored, and the final looks like the one in The final: eight finalists starting from zero, decimal scores, eliminations from shot 12.
Think first: Which lessons from this course carry over almost unchanged to a seated SH1 shooter?
- Stance and natural point of aim, exactly as written
- Sight alignment, trigger control and the shot routine
- None. Para technique is a different sport.
Adapting stance and natural point of aim to a seated or supported position is specialist work. Find a coach with para shooting experience.
At the Paralympics
P1 and P2 are Paralympic events, so the best para pistol shooters have their own Games and their own four-year cycle, much like the one in Building a four-year cycle.
Paris 2024 Paralympic champions, from our sources: P1 Jo Jeong-du (KOR), P2 Sareh Javanmardi (IRI). Not yet confirmed against official results.
The lesson for an able-bodied shooter: the shot itself is the same problem everywhere. Hold the sights steady enough, press the trigger without disturbing them, and do it again sixty times.
- Para shooting has its own rulebook and a classification system that groups athletes by function.
- P1 (men) and P2 (women) are 10 m air pistol SH1 events on the Paralympic programme; P6 mixed team is not. Details flagged for checking.
- The match format closely mirrors the ISSF one: 60 shots in 75 minutes and a 24-shot elimination final.
- Sight alignment, trigger control and the shot routine transfer directly. Stance needs adapting with a specialist coach.