It has been a worrying few weeks for shooters following FITASC’s announcement that it may ban shooters from world and European championships should they compete in other disciplines.
Clay Shooting spoke to FITASC president Jean-François Palinkas regarding the matter and how could potentially affect competitors, and the CPSA has now made the following statement over its CPSA/NCSA World Sportrap Championship in 2016:
The CPSA and ICTSF are both formally recognised by FITASC along with the disciplines of English Sporting, Down The Line, English Skeet and derivatives thereof. There is no issue for any CPSA members who shoot these disciplines at any level.
FITASC has decided it may not accept entries to their championships (European and World) from shooters who take part in other disciplines or events organised by certain other organisations. In the case of South Africa, their membership of FITASC was potentially under threat if they went ahead with the World Sportrap championship so they chose not to. This issue does not apply to Registered STR competitions run by CPSA member clubs as the British member body of FITASC is BICTSF.
With regard to the planned CPSA World Sportrap championship in 2016, running alongside the CPSA World English Sporting championship, it will be up to individual shooters to decide whether their entry to this competition may impact upon their eligibility to enter FITASC championships subsequently. The CPSA will continue to monitor the situation and hold any appropriate discussions with FITASC.
Dear Sirs, as a past member of FITASC Sporting Commission I see the situation like this:
With the threat of banning shooter FITASC runs a risk that shooters could decide that Continental and World Championships are not so very immportant after all, as long as there are other qualitity shoots offered. Possibly at lower entry fees.
What FITASC probably worries about is a drop in their financial benefits coming from Championships.
The truth is that only a handfull shooters world wide get sponsoring on account of their successes. And sponsors are interested in publicity only. If other big shoots have the same or higher numbers of entries as FITASC competitions then we will see what happens.
Regards
Helmut Pöckl