PRESS RELEASE
SPORTSMAN’S ASSOCIATION OF GREAT BRITAIN & NORTHERN IRELAND

LEADING BODY CALLS FOR UK SHOOTERS NOT TO VOLUNTEER TO HELP RUN SHOOTING EVENTS AT 2012 OLYMPICS

The Sportsman’s Association, which was formed in 1996 to oppose the ban on pistols, announced today that they will campaign to dissuade all UK shooters from assisting in the running of shooting events at the London 2012 Olympics.

The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG) and the ODA have announced the shooting events will remain at Woolwich, using temporary facilities, thus ignoring the advice of shooting bodies to use the ranges at Bisley in Surrey.

“The LOCOG/ODA decision will mean that there will be no legacy for shooting from the Olympic Games” said Albie Fox, spokesman for the association. “For too long the shooting sportsmen & women of the UK have bent over backwards to facilitate events such as the Commonwealth Games and Olympics. What do we get in return? Nothing except more legislation designed to kill off the sport. That is why we are calling on all shooters, judges, range officers, and volunteers etc to withhold their support as volunteers to run the shooting events” he added.

The London 2012 website states “London 2012 will depend on up to 70,000 volunteers to make sure the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games run smoothly and successfully.” Without those volunteers and officials the ODA will need to import the officials necessary to run the events. If the Association is successful in harnessing the anger currently felt by shooters and their governing bodies the Olympic committee will be severely embarrassed and inconvenienced at Woolwich.

Albie went on “Any unbiased observer who looks at the facts can see that there are many inaccuracies and mendacious statements in the LOGOC statement. Apart from blighting the lives of the Army families that will have to move out, the Woolwich facilities are unsuitable for accurate shooting. Bisley, the home of British shooting, is 30 minutes from London, will be cheaper to modify to Olympic standards and will leave a lasting legacy for shooting sports. Not using Bisley can only lead us to conclude that someone has deliberately decided to shaft us. That doesn’t mean that we have to accept it with a smile on our faces”.

The Association will also call on the British Shooting Sports Council (BSSC) to mobilise all shooting bodies to back their campaign and organise a protest march in London ASAP.

Contact Albie Fox 07876 443 221

Editor’s Note

Background
British Shooting supported Woolwich as an option when the Olympic bid was made on the understanding that the shooting events would take place at Bisley in 2012.
It is asserted that part of the reason the venue cannot change is that this would be in breach of contractual obligations made with the IOC. This is incorrect when you consider over 65% of the Athens venues were changed after the award of the Games. It also appears that the inability to change the shooting venue to Bisley does not apply to Barking, another suggested alternative, for some reason.

The recent KPMG report was originally commissioned post Beijing Olympics to consider the temporary venues on the basis of cost, feasibility and legacy. British Shooting is confident that in relation to Woolwich, Bisley is cheaper, offers the full facilities for the build-up test events, Olympics and Paralympics, is safer, more secure and offers near one hundred percent legacy – contrary to the unsupported assertions of LOCOG and the ODA.

Report Failings
Crucially, significant doubt surrounds the KPMG report. Key areas are blanked out on the basis that they are ‘commercially sensitive’. In a meeting with the Olympic Minister it was put to her that, in relation to shooting, British Shooting was aware that an inaccurate figure of £60 million had been quoted from within ODA/LOCOG as the cost for building Bisley, exactly twice the figure estimated by our cost consultants. This £60m figure was not denied by her.

There are already a number of public concerns expressed through Parliament and the press about the aims and reliability of this report. Critically British Shooting have also been denied access to the details of the 70 page report that was submitted as justification for the decision to keep the shooting at Woolwich with Barking nominated as the back-up site. The lack of access to both the full KPMG report and the latest internal report from LOCOG/ODA means Bisley is unable to challenge their findings and that the report must be treated with some suspicion.

The LOCOG and ODA press release refers to a feasibility study that had been carried out on Bisley. This is simply not true. When we eventually got them to the table in December 2008 they stated that if we were able to answer some key questions then they would enter into a feasibility study – with them paying half – the total cost of the study being some £200,000. The Shooting Associations agreed these terms. We answered all the questions asked of us in great detail making Bisley a strong contender in the bidding process – according to David Higgins of the ODA on 16th February 2009. The feasibility study never took place because the ODA never truly engaged with Bisley and the shooting governing bodies, which was possibly their intention from the outset.