ISSF World Shooting Championships – History

International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) is an organization that governs international shooting sports. ISSF is a member of the International Olympic Committee and so it is in charge of the Olympic shooting events. ISSF headquarters is in Munich, Germany.

After the success of the 1896 Olympics Games the shooting community decided to conduct international shooting matches that came to be known as World Championships. The first championship was held in 1897 in Lyons, France. The only break in the championships was the two war periods 1915-1920 and 1940-1946.

Only one event was conducted in first championship and that was the 300 meter Free Rifle held in 1897. Four champions were awarded for the 60 shots 3x20 aggregate, and the prone, kneeling and standing sub events. In 1900 pistol event that was added and the 50 meter Free Pistol event became the first pistol event in the championship. In 1958 first women events were included and a full junior men and women program were added in 1994. Over the years the championships progressed from the original four events, eight champions with individual and team in one discipline to the thirty events, 108 champions in four disciplines are rifle, pistol, running target and shotgun that are included in the current world championships.

The first ISSF leaders took their commitment to bring together the shooting federations “of all nations in the world” seriously. A second task was governing and growing its International Matches into World Shooting Championships. During this first era, the Matches were organized every year. 18 annual World Championships were organized between 1897 and 1914.

The leadership of Daniel Mérillon and L’Union des Sociétés de Tir de France was crucial to the renewal of the ISSF. Daniel Mérillon was re-elected President and the French federation agreed to provide administrative support for the ISSF. The key decision was to revive the International Matches or World Shooting Championships. The break in the championships was due to war period from 1915 to 1920. The next Championship was to be held in conjunction with the French National Matches in Lyon in August 1921.

As part of the ISSF’s effort to support new shooting constituencies, it also sanctioned a series of special World Championships for some of its events. These so-called separate World Championships actually began in 1933 when the ISSF began organizing special trap championships. Cooperative efforts with the Federation Internationale de Tir aux Armes Sportives de Chasse (FITASC) had begun in the 1930s and this relationship encouraged the ISSF to support a growing clay target community.

The championships were not contested during World War II from the years 1940-1946.The ISSF relationship with FITASC was renewed in 1951 and ultimately led to the ISSF assuming a lead role in governing amateur clay target events. FITASC was active in promoting live pigeon shooting and trap competitions with large cash prizes so it needed to cooperate with the ISSF to keep trap events on the Olympic and World Championship programs.

New events were added while other events were deleted. Most new ISSF events represented efforts to reach out to shooters who participated in shooting events other than traditional ISSF events. Among the new events that were most significant for the ISSF’s future were skeet, which was added in 1958 are air rifle, which was added in 1966, and air pistol, which entered the program in 1970. Women events were also included in 1958.

The ISSF also experimented with separate World Moving Target and World Air Gun Championships as a means of promoting those two sets of events. Air guns and their development as high-precision target arms played an especially significant role in the growth of the shooting sports in many nations.

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