IPC Shooting announced the competition in its ongoing effort to develop visually impaired shooting.

The Grand Prix will consist of events for both 10 metre air rifle standing - 60 shots, mixed event - and 10m air rifle prone - 60 shots, mixed event - with finals held in each.

The competition will give IPC Shooting the opportunity to gather international visually impaired athletes and to showcase and observe the current status of visually impaired shooting.

It will also give the organisation the chance to begin an essential phase of data collection by the designated visually impaired classification research team.

This in turn will provide the necessary data to develop a sport-specific classification system for the sport.

Visually impaired shooting was tested at the IPC Shooting World Championships in Suhl, Germany earlier this year ©Getty Images


"This competition is essential to the development of visually impaired shooting," said Sarah Bond, IPC Shooting Sport Manager.

"The principle of this competition is to not only to gather international visually impaired athletes to showcase and observe the current status of visually impaired shooting, but also to both enable the start of the necessary data collection by a designated research team who are tasked to develop a sport-specific classification system for visually impaired shooting."

The Grand Prix is scheduled to take place at the Stoke Mandeville Stadium from January 20 until 28.

Visually impaired shooters were invited to July's IPC Shooting World Championships to participate in a number of tests events in Suhl, Germany.

Following the event, the IPC announced that after its success, the discipline will face further tests in 2015 alongside that of Para-clay target shooting.

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


Related stories
August 2014: Further testing to be undertaken after demonstration events at IPC Shooting World Championships
June 2014: Visually impaired shooters to take part in demonstration event at IPC Shooting World Championships