Top 50 Moments of 2017: No. 36 - Para trap becomes official shooting discipline

Shooting Para sport continued its strong growth ahead of Tokyo 2020 26 Nov 2017 By IPC

The year was filled with plenty of good news for shooting Para sport.

The sport’s international federation welcomed a new discipline to its family. Then later in the year, they celebrated the addition of another medal event into the next Paralympic Games programme.

Both were milestones for the sport and mark No. 36 in the International Paralympic Committee’s (IPC) Top 50 Moments of 2017.

In May, World Shooting Para Sport announced that Para trap had become an official discipline following the IPC’s Governing Board’s approval, and tt did not take long to get things moving.

In 2017 alone, Para trap saw its first World Cup held in Lonato, Italy, which was just a step forward in further integrating the discipline into World Shooting Para Sport events.

A lot of pieces had to fit into place to make that World Cup happen, such as having a scoring system. And before that World Cup, World Shooting Para Sport expanded its partnership with electronic scoring systems provider SIUS to include the discipline. The news meant fans were able to follow live results from Lonato.

While the sport looks to continue building the shotgun discipline, it was also able to get another medal event into the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games programme, more good news not only for the federation but the athletes who have been competing in R9 (mixed 50m rifle prone SH2).

The final medal event programme for Tokyo 2020 was revealed in early September, with shooting among the sports to receive more medal events after failed attempts previously. And the announcement came ahead of the Osijek World Cup in Croatia, giving athletes a newfound motivation.

“World Shooting Para Sport Manager Tyler Anderson said. “We saw our rifle programme expand as we added R9 to the Paralympic programme. This is a huge win for us, especially our SH2 shooters. Our shooting family is more complete as we successfully incorporated Para trap into our organisation and have applied for 2024 Paralympic inclusion. We now turn our sights to two World Championships in 2018 and the qualification pathway to Tokyo. We are optimistic and eager to continue our positive momentum in 2018 here at World Shooting Para Sport.”

The countdown of the IPC’s Top 50 Moments continues until 31 December.