Success Down Under highlights poor decision to exclude shooting at 2022 Commonwealth Games

The decision to cut shooting from the Commonwealth Games in 2022 has attracted further condemnation after a fantastic showing by the Home Nations' athletes at this years' Games.

In total 24 medals were won by shooters from England, Northern Ireland, Isle of Man, Scotland and Wales, working out at over 10% of the medals being brought back home.

The Countryside Alliance congratulates each and every winner and competitor, who have once again demonstrated that as well as being accessible to all at the grassroots level, shooting is a sport at which British athletes excel.

The decision to exclude the sport of shooting was originally made on the basis that the National Shooting Centre at Bisley is too far away from Birmingham – even though the Manchester Games in 2002 managed to incorporate the sport at Bisley and the centre is ready and willing to host the Games. However, the failure to include shooting means more than missed medal opportunities and our athletes losing the chance to compete in front of a home crowd.

Birmingham's history is entwined with the history of shooting sports and gun making, housing one of only two Proof Houses in the UK. The first gun manufacturers came to Birmingham in the 1600's, giving the city's famous Gun Quarter its name. It would be a disgrace for a city so rich in gun making history to turn its back on its roots. Furthermore, Birmingham 2022 have announced that they will be building a new aquatic centre for the Games and the Alliance questions why a proposal to build an Olympic standard shooting ground in the Midlands has not been advanced further. The exclusion of shooting has the potential to disrupt the funding of our sport, casting competitive shooting around the world into an era of uncertainty.

The Alliance strongly believes both the Birmingham Commonwealth Games Committee and the Commonwealth Games Federation need to reconsider and reinstate shooting to its rightful place at the 2022 Commonwealth Games. The success of our shooters deserves all the support and resources that the Government can provide, and we will be writing to both organisations as well as the Sports Minister, Tracey Crouch MP, to highlight our shooters' medal haul and ask how they intend to support shooting success in future Commonwealth Games.