Jessie Duff makes USPSA Grandmaster

[jetfire]

In a bit of interesting news, Jessie Duff (of Team Taurus) recently became the first female USPSA Grandmaster.

On the last run of the classifier calculator Jessie's 100% on CM 99-23 (Front Sight) put her over a 95% average in Open, making her the first woman to ever reach the rank of Grandmaster in USPSA. This raises a couple of interesting questions: first question is who's next? The second question is whether or not this is going to open the floodgates on women getting their GM cards; not too long ago a female Russian IPSC shooter won all of the Production division in the East Asia champion, which is a legitimate accomplishment as well.

With a couple of notable exceptions, the trend in shooting sports has been towards shooters who approach shooting as a sport and train athletically in addition to working their trigger fingers out. So with Jessie breaking the GM barrier, will other women shooters in the sport be similarly motivated to kick their training into high gear and get their GM cards?

[feudist]

Well, I hope so.

It can only help.

I think you might see some of the "4 minute mile effect" where after Bannister broke the record, several guys did it in rapid succession.

Other women look at her and think"if she did it, so can I"

Here's to her

[Haraise]

First thought: She /really/ worked hand and arm strength to get there.

Second thought: Even pro teams still use comps that seem to be designed by 'what looks good' in the 1980s. Weird.

Good on her.

[rob_s]

Shooting seems to be one game where a woman, especially an attractive one, could stand to make even more money than their male counterparts.

What has led to the super high level of competition in MMA is that payouts got high enough to allow guys to train full time. Previously virtually all competitors had to have real jobs to make ends meet. Shooting may be poised to make a similar transition.

[rsa-otc]

Randi Rogers has been on a tear as of late. It's only a matter of time before she gets her GM in production.

[Dr. No]

I'll just leave this here.

2013 - USPSA Open Nationals - 76.663%
2013 - USPSA Limited Nationals - 76.744%
2013 - USPSA Production Nationals - 65.255%

[SeriousStudent]

My congratulations to her on her accomplishment, I think she is a very good ambassador for the shooting sports.

[jetfire]

I'll just leave this here.

2013 - USPSA Open Nationals - 76.663%
2013 - USPSA Limited Nationals - 76.744%
2013 - USPSA Production Nationals - 65.255%

Not to put too fine a point on it, but so what? There are plenty of GMs that don't shoot GM level scores at Nationals. I'm not white-knighting for Jessie here, but I'm seriously tired of people posting her Nationals scores as if they have any bearing on her classification as a GM.

If your argument is that people who can't shoot GM level scores at Nationals aren't real GMs, that doesn't really hold water, because then there would only be 5, maybe 6 GMs in the whole world, and USPSA would have the same Master-class problem that IDPA does.

[Goat18D]

I'll just leave this here.

2013 - USPSA Open Nationals - 76.663%
2013 - USPSA Limited Nationals - 76.744%
2013 - USPSA Production Nationals - 65.255%

But she also beat 8 other GM's in Open at Nats, not to mention 38th overall, which beat Jay Hirshberg and Chris Keen who are supposed to be strong shooters and finish well at area matches, and she hasn't even written a book.

[gtmtnbiker98]

But she also beat 8 other GM's in Open at Nats, not to mention 38th overall, which beat Jay Hirshberg and Chris Keen who are supposed to be strong shooters and finish well at area matches, and she hasn't even written a book.

Chris Keen is a local shooter and he is a strong shooter.