Shooting Federation Chief Rates London Venue

(ATR) The secretary general of the International Shooting Sport Federation tells Around the Rings that London 2012 is one of the "best Olympics" for his sport.

Franz Schreiber was speaking to ATR at the Royal Artillery Barracks on Monday –the last day of competition for shooting at the Games – and he had high praise for the crowds that attended the event.

"For shooting these have been one of the best Olympics," he said. "From the spectator side, certainly it is the best Olympics because our venue was completely full and it was packed – the spectators were tremendously good. One day we had 3,600 tickets here – they were enthusiastic and we had no empty seats."

Even with the weather; having some outdoor competition even when it was raining, the spectators were still there in their seats watching and applauding and creating a great atmosphere."

After the test event back in April, Schreiber said there were some issues that the federation wanted sorted out for Games-time. But upon arriving at London 2012, he said the set-up he found was better than he was expecting.

Several Olympic and world records were broken in the shooting competition, but the secretary general claims the sport's main take-away from London is an innovation for the sport in Olympic terms.

"One lesson we learned here in this Olympic Games is that so far we always said a temporary venue is difficult when combining two ranges like 10m and 50m – but it is possible," he said. "It does take a lot of work. That is clear, but it shows us that this is possible.

"It might be good for the organizers of future Olympic hosts to put up a temporary venue close to the Village, close to the center of everything and then it is working perfectly."

Schreiber was very happy with the wide-open space of the venue, which allowed for ground passes to be sold to the public.

With military bands playing, a variety of food stalls and access to watch the outdoor qualification rounds, the ground passes proved to be a huge success among spectators.

The sport also gained some significant coverage due to host nation Great Britain’s Peter Wilson winning a gold medal in the double trap last Wednesday. Schreiber smiles when he says "the atmosphere was fantastic. We were so happy for Peter and the crowd were amazing".

Once the temporary shooting venue has been taken down, there are plans to reassemble elsewhere in the U.K. to help create more Peter Wilsons for the future. However, a location for the venue has yet to be confirmed.

Reported by Christian Radnedge

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