History
The air pistol event was introduced on the World Championship level in 1970, and on the Olympic programme in 1988. Before 1985, when finals began to be used, championships were decided by the results of the 40 or 60 shot match. Before 1982, the men's programme also consisted of 40 shots.
As in many other ISSF events, the target for air pistol was reduced in size in 1989, also lowering the scores (although not by much), and thereby resetting all records. The development after this shows a contrast to that of air rifle shooting: whereas in air rifle the winning score of the 1989 World Championships would not have reached the final 17 years later, the same result increase has not occurred in air pistol, and Sergei Pyzhianov's world record of 593 points, set in the first World Cup Final with the new targets, remained unbeaten for almost 20 years.
Although competitions are no longer held outdoors, the most important competitions (Olympics, World Championships, World Cups) are still scheduled for the Northern Hemisphere summer season because they are combined with outdoor events. Many lesser international events, however, are held during the European indoor season between October and March, culminating in the European Championships each year. Most of these competitions are multi-day events held together with air rifle matches.
Read more about this topic: 10 Metre Air Pistol
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“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“There has never been in history another such culture as the Western civilization M a culture which has practiced the belief that the physical and social environment of man is subject to rational manipulation and that history is subject to the will and action of man; whereas central to the traditional cultures of the rivals of Western civilization, those of Africa and Asia, is a belief that it is environment that dominates man.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“We know only a single science, the science of history. One can look at history from two sides and divide it into the history of nature and the history of men. However, the two sides are not to be divided off; as long as men exist the history of nature and the history of men are mutually conditioned.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)