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The finnish national championships is active in the legendary international shooting centre in Hollola, Finland. Today the best score was made by Aleksi Leppä in standard rifle 3P. Leppä hammered mighty 588 points and won before Juho Kurki (585) and Juho Autio (581). Leppä’s result equals Finnish record which has been shot earlier by Henri Häkkinen and Juho Kurki.

After today’s events Leppä is still leading the Finnish all-time top scores in 300 m including free rifle 60 prone, 3×40 shots and standard rifle

1. Aleksi Leppä, HAS 2371 (597, 1186, 588)
2. Juha Hirvi, KAS 2366 (599, 1180, 587)
3. Juho Kurki, KaA 2363 (595, 1180, 588)

Another shining suprise was when young civilian shooter Riku Koskela made 577 in standard rifle and 595 in free rifle prone. With these results and good shooting in free rifle 3×40 (1163) in the Lapua European Cup in Århus (DAN) last week he climbed to the Top 20 list in all-time top scores by 2335 points.

Eetu Kallioinen and Lari Pesonen was named to the Finnish Olympic Team participating in Tokyo Olympic Games. Their shooting discipline is skeet.

Pesonen gained an olympic quota in 2019 in world cup in Changwon (KOR) and Kallioinen this year in the European Shooting Championships in Osijek (CRO).

Both shooters serves in the Finnish Defence Forces. Pesonen is in the Armoured Brigade in Hämeenlinna and Kallioinen in the Guard Jäger Regiment in Helsinki.

Sotilasampujien Eetu Kallioinen suoriutui loistokkaasti skeet-ammunnassa Kroatian Osijekissa järjestetyissä Euroopan mestaruuskilpailuissa sijoittuen finaalissa kolmanneksi ja hankki samalla Suomelle maapaikan Tokion olympialaisiin.

Peruskilpailussa Kallioinen ampui 122 (24-24-25-24-25) yhdessä kuuden muun ampujan kanssa. Peruskilpailun parhaat tulokset, 123, ampuivat Kyproksen Georgios Achilleos ja Italian Gabriele Rossetti. Kallioinen selvitti itsensä finaaliin kuuden ampujan uusinnassa.

Finaalissa Kallioinen ampui 45 kiekkoa Euroopan mestaruuden voittaneen Rossettin ampuessa 55 ja hopealle sijoittuneen Achilleoksen ammuttua 53 kiekkoa.

Muista suomalaisista Tommi Takanen ampui peruskilpailussa 116 ja Timo Laitinen 114. Molemmat karsiutuivat jatkosta.

Suomella on nyt kaksi maapaikkaa skeetissä Tokion olympialaisiin. Suomen olympiakomitean määrittämien valintakriteerien mukaisesti Kallioinen kiinnitti itsensä ampumaansa maapaikkaan. Lari Pesosen kaksi vuotta sitten hankkiman toisen maapaikan täyttämisessä on mielenkiintoinen asetelma, kun tämän kevään EM-näytöissä toiseksi parhaiten Kallioisen jälkeen ampui Timo Laitinen. Kuitenkin ISSF:n maailman rankingissa Oskari Kössi on parhaana suomalaisena sijalla 23 (281 pistettä) ennen 27. sijalla olevaa Eetu Kallioista (212) ja 44. olevaa Lari Pesosta (80) sekä 124. sijalla olevaa Tommi Takasta (1). Timo Laitisella ei ole ISSF:n verkkosivujen mukaan sijoitusta maailman rankingissa.

The pistol team of the Finnish Military Shooting Team organised a training camp in the famous Hollola International Shooting Centre (HISC) this week. Recent years has been quite sad with the Covid-19 pandemia. But it has given good training time also to military shooters. This work can be seen in good results of pistol shooters.

Qualifying results for the Nordic Military Shooting Championships 2021

Military rapid fire pistol

1. Marko Talvitie 586
2. Joonas Knuuti 576
3. Joonas Kallio 572
4. Jan Parhiala 571
5. Petri Ylinen 571
6. Jorma Jäntti 561

Centre fire pistol

1. Marko Talvitie 581
2. Jorma Jäntti 580
3. Petri Ylinen 578
4. Joonas Kallio 578
5. Joonas Knuuti 559
6. Jan Parhiala 552

Compined results

1. Marko Talvitie 1167
2. Joonas Kallio 1150
3. Petri Ylinen 1149
4. Jorma Jäntti 1141
5. Joonas Knuuti 1135
6. Jan Parhiala 1123

Talvitie and Kallio has been chosen to represent the Finnish Shooting Sport Federation in European Championships 2021 in Osijek, Croatia. Talvitie will shoot rapid fire pistol, standard pistol and centre fire pistol. Kallio will shoot air pistol, free pistol, standard pistol and centre fire pistol.

More about pistol team here.

The Finnish military shooting team organised a joint 300 metre shooting training camp with the Finnish Shooting Sport Federation (SAL) this week in the famous Hollola International Shooting Centre (HISC).

The main focus was to get familiarised in to outdoor shooting after a long and dark winter period. Besides elementary and advanced training a match training was performed as a 300 metre mixed pair match like they do in the European Shooting Championships (rules according to Bologna 22.9.2019).

The Finnish civilian team consisting mainly of military shooters is heading to the Osijek ECH in June 2021 although nobody is still yet chosen to the event. And of course there is still the threat of the Covid19 pandemic to postpone the whole championships.

The winning pair today was Henna Viljanen (SAL) – Juho Autio before Aleksi Leppä – Juha Rutonen and Juho Kurki – Riku Koskela (SAL). The differences between pairs were extremely small. The match training was found very interesting and purposeful inside daily training camp routines.

Picture below (by Tapio Kajan): the great winning pair Henna Viljanen and Juho Autio.

Besides these horrible days with Covid-19 pandemia there has been a threat concerning sport shooting in Finnish Defense Forces. They were planning to exit the sport shooting championships inside army. As a replacement there could have been only sniper shooting and normal duty assault rifle and pistol shooting disciplines.

But luckily a good balance has been found and CISM disciplines has survived except 25 metre and 50 metre disciplines for female shooters.

This is a really good piece of information for military and civilian competitive target shooting. Finnish military sports is best known by very high competence in shooting. As a evidence of this, Finland has won twice the best nation event and huge number of podium places in the International Military Sport Organisation (CISM) world championships. Furthermore there are also three olympic medalist and thirteen individual CISM world champions produced by the sport training system of the defence forces. And by now, there is still six military world champions in service.

Finnish Military Shooters ltd have signed a 2-year high performance co-operation agreement with Lapua Ammunitions ltd. With the help of the agreement Finnish military shooters will have competitive level ammunitions in high power pistol and rifle disciplines.

Two times world championships in 300 metre shooting, Aleksi Leppä and world cup finalist in air rifle, Juho Kurki has begun a new season which is heading to Tokyo Olympics 2021. The two mighty athletes was met in the training camp of the Finnish Shooting Sport Association in Inkoo Shooting Range 10.6.2020.

Hallitus päätti kokouksessaan 9.6.2020, että yhdistyksen vuosikokous suunnitellaan pidettäväksi Sotilas-SM-kilpailujen yhteydessä 16.9.2020 klo 19.30 riippuen vallitsevasta Covid-19-tilanteesta.

Kokouksesta lähetetään erillinen kutsu.

According to the information sources the Finnish Defence Forces is planning to stop organising sport shooting championships in its annually organised shooting championships. As a replacement there might be only sniper shooting and normal duty assault rifle and pistol shooting disciplines.

The Finnish Military Shooters Association highly appreciates sniper shooting and skills to use ordinary duty weapons but is very worried about the mastery of core competences in shooting which mission based shooting does not fully promote.

Furthermore, it is quite peculiar that cutting down sport shooting in defence forces championships it will be still continued with unmilitary sports like football and civilian biathlon. One can ask that how military football looks like and where it is played at combat zone?

Finnish military sports is best known by very high competence in shooting. As a evidence of this, Finland has won twice the best nation event and huge number of podium places in the International Military Sport Organisation (CISM) world championships. Furthermore there are also three olympic medalist and thirteen individual CISM world champions produced by the sport training system of the defence forces. And by now, there is still six military world champions in service.

The Finnish Military Shooters Association sincerely hopes that the sport shooting is given the high appreciation as a military sport and it will continue as a core discipline in military sports.