Luciano Rossi, newly established as President of the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF), will have a meeting with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) within the next few days to discuss the location and arrangements for shooting at the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.

The 69-year-old Italian, who served as an ISSF vice-president for 20 years, won an acrimonious election on November 30, defeating Russian oligarch Vladimir Lisin by 136 votes to 127 at the ISSF General Assembly in the Egyptian resort Sharm El-Sheikh.

After returning from Egypt to his office in Rome, he spoke to insidethegames about his priorities for what he describes as a "new era" for the ISSF — and as far as Los Angeles 2028 is concerned, for Rossi it is all about location, location, location…

I know very well the situation ahead of the 2028 Los Angeles Games is very complicated,

he said.

Soon we have a meeting with the International Olympic Committee.

Our goal is 2028.

Rossi believes it is crucial for the sport's future that it gets a location close to the centre of the Olympic city after the arrangements that are fixed for the Paris 2024 Games, where shooting will take place around 300 kilometres away from the Olympic city in Châteauroux.

A scale model of the French National Shooting Center in Châteauroux, where shooting events will take place at Paris 

For Paris 2024 we will co-operate with the French Shooting Federation and the Organising Committee. 

We are put out from the capital — this will be the first time shooting is put out from the city of the Olympics.

But now this is a final decision. I have talked with the French federation and said we cannot talk everything, this is OK.

This is the reason that we are working for Los Angeles. 

These Games are very important to us.

The likely venue for shooting at Los Angeles 2028 is at a temporary venue in the Valley Sports Park, located about 20 miles from the city in the Sepulveda Basin Recreation Center in the San Fernando Valley — a very different proposition from the arrangements in Paris.

Rossi is also working urgently on ways to make competitions less expensive for National Federations.

We don’t go in the direction that only the rich countries can compete,

he said.

Many competitions are expensive and too long.

Some competitions are more than 22, 23, 24 days.

Many federations are poor.

It is only special thanks to the IOC that gives $17million for the quarter of Tokyo.

The venue for shooting at Los Angeles 2028 has not been finalised yet 

But do we want to organise smaller competitions?

Yes of course.

Our first goal we have is to respect the problem of the poorer federations.

Competing internationally is a big cost.

Effectively not more than five or six countries can go around the world in these competitions.

The other 160 -where?

It is a big majority that are poor federations that have no money.

We have to reduce these expenses, we have to organise events closer to federations that need less travelling.

It is easy to say but very complicated — but 100 per cent we have to do this.