Rifle Shooting for Athletes With Vision Impairment: Does One Class Fit All?

Abstract

Revised evidence-based classification criteria introduced for shooting for athletes with vision impairment (VI shooting) suggest that athletes with impaired contrast sensitivity (CS) and visual acuity (VA) should be eligible for inclusion in the sport but should all eligible athletes compete against each other in the same “class” or is more than one class necessary? Twenty-five elite VI shooting athletes took part in the study. Two measures of visual function were assessed under standardized conditions: VA (using an ETDRS logMAR letter chart, and/or a BRVT chart) and CS (using both a Pelli-Robson chart and a Mars number chart). Shooting performance, in both prone and standing events, was measured during an international VI shooting competition. Fourteen of the 25 athletes had measurable VA, and for CS, 8 athletes had measurable function with the Pelli-Robson chart and 13 with the Mars chart. The remaining athletes had function not numerically measurable by the charts and were considered to have no residual vision. There was no indication that shooting performance varied with visual function, and individuals that had residual vision had no advantage over those without vision for either prone or standing shooting. The modifications made to VI shooting, including the use of auditory tones to guide the gun barrel, appear to have successfully rendered the sport equitable for all eligible athletes. Only one class is necessary for athletes. An improved method of measuring CS in athletes with profound VI would be advantageous.

May the best-sighted win? The relationship between visual function and performance in Para judo

“…They are written on the card pairs that are used to perform the test and calculated from the size of the presented target when observing these targets at the designated testing distance of 25 cm. The value of 4.0 logMAR for NLP corresponds with previous studies (Aaberg et al, 1998;Allen et al, 2019;Jacobs et al, 2011) and represents the logMAR equivalent to an object that subtends 180 degrees of visual field (i.e. essentially the whole visual field).…”

The relationship between visual function and performance in Para-swimming

“…At rst sight, the difference between these two values may seem substantial. However, in this and other studies, it is rare to nd athletes with a binocular VA between 2.6 and 3.5 logMAR (which could be due to the way VA is generally measured [9,15,20,22]). Indeed, there were none in our study.…”

“…'Perception of light direction' was recorded if the athlete could respond correctly 3 out of 4 times. Black/white discrimination was nominally de ned as 3.5 logMAR, light perception as 3.7 logMAR, and no light perception as 4.0 logMAR [9,22,31]. In alignment with the IPC's VI classi cation decision making rules for the single letter E cards, when multiple cards were used, the card yielding the second-best VA score was taken as the athletes' true VA (to minimise the chance of erroneous scores with a single better-than-expected result).…”

“…VI ri e shooting recently became the rst VI sport to implement their own sport-speci c system of classi cation. Research in VI ri e shooting demonstrated that only one class was necessary in that sport, because functionally blind athletes could perform just as well as athletes with much less impairment (presumably because they can effectively exploit the auditory feedback used in the sport to guide the ri e; [7][8][9][10][11][12]). Note that research has also begun in other VI sports including football [13,14], judo [15][16][17][18][19][20], skiing [21,22], athletics [23], goalball [24] and swimming [6].…”

Expert opinion on classification for footballers with vision impairment: Towards evidence-based minimum impairment criteria

“…This statement outlined key considerations in classification research including the impact of sport rules, blindfolds, guides, procedures for evaluating vision, and developed models for undertaking classification research. Building on this, a number of individual sports such as shooting (Allen et al, 2016(Allen et al, , 2018(Allen et al, , 2019Myint et al, 2016), swimming (Ravensbergen, Genee, & Mann, 2018) and judo (Krabben et al, 2018(Krabben et al, , 2019 have begun to develop evidence bases for classification. However, challenges remain for the VI version of the world's most popular sport, football.…”