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Seasons & the Olympic cycle
Nobody shoots their best all year. Form rises and falls whether you plan it or not. The question is whether your best weeks land on the days that count.
Think first: Your season has a national championship in June and a selection trial in October. Where do you start planning the year?
- On 1 January, then work forward week by week
- At the priority competitions, then work backwards from them
- Nowhere: train hard all year and you will be ready for both
The phases of a season
Planning a season in phases is called periodisation. A classic season has three phases, and the first has two parts.
- Preparatory — General first: build the base, including technique changes and fitness. · Specific next: training looks more and more like the match.
- Competition — The events themselves, with training that keeps form sharp. · Priority competitions sit at the end of a planned build-up.
- Transition — Recovery after the season. · Time to review the logbook and plan the next year.
Inside each phase, training is grouped into blocks of 3–4 weeks, each made of 1-week cycles. A block has one main aim, for example rebuilding the grip or raising match endurance. At the end of a block you check the logbook and decide what the next one is for.
One peak or two?
A single long build-up works when there is one main event. Many shooters have two or more events that matter, months apart. For them, the season is split into separate blocks, each building to its own peak. This is called block periodisation.
Think first: Your two priority events are about 20 weeks apart. What does the plan look like?
- One long competition phase covering both events
- Two blocks, each building to its own peak, with a short rebuild between them
- Peak for the first and hope you hold form for the second
Switch between the two shapes. Each dashed line marks the end of a 4-week block.
The four-year Olympic cycle
Olympic shooters plan across four years as well as one. A common model gives each year a theme.
Think first: The LA28 cycle runs from 2025 to 2028, so the model puts quota hunting in 2027. When does LA28 quota hunting actually begin?
- In January 2027, at the start of year 3
- At the World Championships in Doha in November 2026, late in year 2
- In 2028, the Olympic year
Here is the real calendar for 10 m air pistol.
- 31 Jul 2026 — Qualification window opens — Results from now count toward the minimum qualification score and the Olympic ranking.
- 1–14 Nov 2026 — World Championships, Doha — First quota places: 3 per sex in this event.
- 2027 — World Cups, World Championships in Daegu, continental championships — Four World Cup places, three more World Championship places, and the continental places.
- 1 May 2028 — Qualification window closes — Last day for qualifying results.
- 14–30 Jul 2028 — Olympic Games, Los Angeles — 29 places per sex in 10 m air pistol.
The full detail is in Quotas belong to nations and Building a four-year cycle.
When the plan meets reality
A plan is a forecast, not a promise. Illness, a new pistol or a slump will move things.
Two habits keep a plan useful. Review it at the end of every block, using the logbook rather than memory. And protect the priority dates: if something has to give, drop a less important competition, not the build-up to a key one.
- Put priority competitions on the calendar first, then plan backwards.
- A season runs preparatory (general, then specific), competition, then transition.
- Train in blocks of 3–4 weeks made of 1-week cycles; review at the end of each block.
- Two or more key events far apart call for block periodisation: one build-up per peak.
- LA28 quota hunting starts at the Doha World Championships in November 2026, earlier than the four-year model suggests.
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