Bundesliga

As in many other sports, the premier German club competition in 10 metre air rifle and 10 metre air pistol is known as the Bundesliga. The league, open to both men and women, was created in 1997 and is administered by the German Shooting Federation. In each discipline, twenty four teams of five shooters each compete during a season spanning from October to February for the German team championship. Apart from the top German shooters, the league also attracts many shooters from other European countries, as well as a few from India and the United States, and involves a number of Olympic medalists and other shooters of international success. League format Match format The Bundesliga matches mainly follow the International Shooting Sport Federation's rules for air rifle and air pistol, with the following important changes: All shooters fire only 40 competition shots. The sighting shots are not included in the match time. Instead there is a 15-minute sighting shot period before the match. The match time is lowered to 50 minutes. (Only electronic targets are allowed in the Bundesliga. When in lower leagues paper targets are used, the match time is 60 minutes.) The shooters are paired up based on previous results so that the top shooters from both teams stand next to each other, and so on down. The shooter achieving the best 40-shot result in each pair wins a point for his or her team. Ties are resolved by firing single shots as needed. Thus, a match can be won by either 5–0, 4–1 or 3–2. The match format of the Bundesliga has been so successful that the European Shooting Confederation mirrored it when creating the ESC Youth League for national teams of young shooters.