The "World Cup" Competition: The World Cup is a competition for smallbore rifle shooters and was introduced to the LBTSA's competition programme in 1990. It was originally patterned on the then current football World Cup competition and it basically still does although FIFA has tweaked the format of their Finals since then and has made it difficult if not impossible to transfer to this environment. Here's a picture of the awards on offer.
About the competition:
Entry is limited to the first 72 applicants and is unclassified. There is a postal qualifying stage and a shoulder-to-shoulder final where all the qualifiers gather together on the same range to compete for the handsome trophy and the not-insignificant prize money.
The total entry is drawn randomly into up to twelve groups with six competitors per group. In the postal stage, each competitor in each group will shoot one 20-shot match against each of the others in the group: two points for a win, one for a draw. These targets are shot on the competitor’s own range and sent to the central organiser, who collates the scores and sends out the results. Local scoring at the club is allowed, as is the use of electronic targets. These matches are shot in five 2-week periods from October to December, and the top two in each group (i.e. 24 shooters) go through to the Final, which is held in Edinburgh, normally in early March.
The Finalists are split into six groups of four using a seeding process based on averages in the qualifying stage. Each shooter shoots one 10-shot target against each of the others in their group: again, two points for a win, one for a draw. The top two in each group plus the four best 3rd-placers (i.e. 16 competitors) proceed to a knock-out stage, which consists of twenty shots in each round. Ties are determined by shooting an extra 10-shot target (‘extra time’), and if still tied, then it’s shot-for-shot sudden-death (‘penalty shoot-out’).
The eight shooters who are eliminated in the first KO round of the Final go into the Plate competition, and proceed to shoot their own separate quarter-, semi-finals and final. There is also a similar ‘Bowl’ competition for the eight who don’t make it past the Group stage.
Here’s a graphical representation of how it all hangs together.
Here’s a photo of all the awards on offer.
Here are the rules for the competition (including local scoring procedures and the use of electronic targets).