I went to Day 1 of the ISSF World Cup shooting event which started today. It is being held at the Beijing Shooting Range Hall and Clay Target Field. It is quite far from central Beijing. I took line 1 to the last station on the line - Pingguoyuan. From there it is a short taxi ride to the stadium.

It is one of Beijing’s new stadiums. I was about to take a picture of the entrance and a guy said not to take pictures. Not sure why. Once I was in the stadium area, it didn’t seem to be a problem to take pictures. I bought a 30 yuan ticket which enabled me free access to the different areas. I asked for a ticket in Chinese and the young girl started speaking English. I asked for a schedule, but she didn’t know what I meant. Inside I could pick up a schedule at the Information Booth.

I know that the guides at the stadiums are all volunteers, but they didn’t seem to have much of an idea of what was going on. The police doing the security at the entrance also didn’t speak English. One of the policewomen was trying to say something about my camera but I had no idea what she was saying. I speak a bit of Mandarin, but at the Olympics you won’t be able to expect many foreign visitors to speak the language. Normally I am not critical of these kinds of things, but I think other people might not be so patient.

Seating is pretty limited at the indoor pistol and rifle range. It was the first time I had ever seen a shooting competition. As a spectator it is fairly difficult to follow what was going on.

Clay target shooting was better to watch. How they can shoot the targets is pretty impressive. The athlete’s names on the scoreboard weren’t working, so it was difficult to follow who was winning.

The competition continues for another eight days.