The shooting park is located at Armenochori approximately 10 minutes drive from the main district of Limassol.
This region is typically arid with olive groves and scrub stoney hillsides, the World championships took place in this setting.
The ground, under the guidance of Lakis Phylactou, General Secretary of the Cyprus Shooting Sport Federation, had made a lot of effort to accommodate the domestic requirements of the 860 plus competitors booked in for this event, there were 60 'No Shows'.
6 British International Referees took part, Mick Cotton, Neil Reddy, Jayne Webster, Rose Dyson, Keith Mursell and David Dale.
There where 8 courses set for the competition all had 4 stands per layout, the courses where named:
Beretta, Browning, Krieghoff, Blaser, Olympia, Ornamental, RC and Promatic.
Targets were supplied by Laporte. Traps by Promatic.
The majority of the layouts with the exception of Browning, Promatic and Blaser were set on the hillside in the National Park, as a condition of access these layouts would have to be cleared of all target debris on completion of the event, quite a task.
The competition ran over four days; as usual the first day is a settling in period with not a lot to report, however, John Dyson, Ben Husthwaite, Petros Ioannou (CY) Brett Winstanley set the early pace with 50 straight and Richard Faulds 49 and George Digweed unusually off the pace with 45.
On completion of day two it became obvious that Ben Husthwaite 100 straight and Richard Faulds 99 Kevin Jobling 98 would be the ones to beat with George Digweed still a little off the pace. The Browning and Kriefhoff layouts were proving to be 2 or 3 targets tougher than the other layouts.
In the team placing the French Senior team had the lead on 371, USA 367 and Italy 365. GB Seniors 5 adrift on 360. The Ladies had USA 238, GB 236, Australia, 231. Juniors, Italy 269, USA 257 and GB 256.
GB was now leading the Veterans 268 with France on 259 and USA 254. Finally the Super Veterans saw GB 241, Italy 226 and USA 221.
With the top seniors looking to easily break 190 for their total scores there was speculation that Ben Husthwaite would not be overtaken. At this point it is well worth reminding you that this competition runs over 4 days and 8 layouts and only after 3 days do you get a good feeling what the top score will be. There were 6 Brits 1 US 1 French 1 Italian and 1 Portuguese competitor in the top10 however Husthwaite had finally stuttered 145 and Faulds was now in the lead on 148
RESULTS.
Seniors: Richard Faulds 198 (World Record) Anthony Matarese (USA) 194 + 22 Ben Husthwaite 194 + 20.
Ladies: Gold, Cheryl Hall 176. Silver, Diane Sorantino (USA) 175. Bronze, Francoise Rosier (FR) 169.
Juniors: Gold, Brett Winstanley 187. Silver, Davide Gaspirini (IT) 184 + 22. Bronze, Michael Spada (IT) 184 + 11.
Veterans: Gold, John Bidwell 186. Silver, John Dyson 182 + 20. Bronze Steve Brightwell 182 + 16 a GB clean sweep.
Super Vets: Gold Joe Cantey (USA) 170. Silver, Larry Farrow (USA) 167 and Bronze, Paddy Howe 164.
Team placing are follows:
Seniors: USA Gold, 739, France Silver 734, Bronze, GB 728.
GB Team: Martin Myers, 185 Tony Manvell 183 Mark Winser 184 Shaun Stacey, 176.
Ladies: Gold, GB 484, Silver, USA 482, Bronze France 467.
GB Team: Cheryl Hall 176, Sarah Hamburger 160 and Sarah Clay 148.
Juniors: Gold Italy 538. Silver GB 518. Bronze, France 518.
GB Team: Sam Green 177, David Bolton 167 and Kyle Storey 174.
Vets: Gold GB 550. Silver France 516, Bronze Italy 497.
GB Team: John Pool 176, John Dyson 182 and Steve Brightwell 182.
Super Vets: Gold USA 473, Silver GB 465, Bronze France 457.
GB Team: Paddy Howe 164, David Payne 159 and Jeremy Bland 142.
Note:
As there are no shoot offs for team placings at FITASC Sporting the Juniors were placed in the Silver position ahead of France by count back from layout 8 as the rules dictate; this proves that you need to work hard to the wire on all layouts as shown by the Juniors who battled well over the 4 day event.
All the GB Team members worked hard to earn an excellent team result of 2 team Golds, 2 team Silvers and one team Bronze.
Martin Myers excellent 50 straight on the last days layouts moved the Senior team up into a medal position.
Junior Sam Green shot magnificently considering his gun was consistently malfunctioning loosing him 4 targets due to penalties; Browning eventually managed to repair his gun on the final day. On the up side for Sam he is now sponsored by Browning.
Cheryl Hall now has a valuable title of World Ladies Champion for her efforts; she worked consistently over the 4 days narrowly beating Diane Sorantino by 1, this is a huge scalp for Cheryl.
All team members were exceptional ambassadors for their country. Nick Woodward was forced to return early to the UK due to serious health problems with his young son who is now recovering well. All the team wish him a speedy recovery.
Team GB FITASC Sporting and the Team Management wish it to be known that they are extremely grateful for the support from Alan Rhone Krieghoff, Darren Hull, Blaser and Mike Haw Hull Cartridge Company, thank you for your generous support of Team GB FITASC Sporting 2008.
World Cup:
Seniors: Ben Husthwaite, George Digweed, Filipe Rosa Luis (PO).
Veterans: John Pool, Alaine Marcheron (FR) John Bidwell.
S/Veterans: Joe Cantey (US) Ray McFarlane (Australia) David Payne.
Juniors: Bastien Havart (FR), Sam Green Michael Spada (IT)
Ladies: Cheryl Hall, Inna Alexsandrova (RU) Francoise Rosier (FR).
Observations:
It is recommended that the travel agent in Cyprus 'Coral Travel' is not used, competitors from all competing nations found on arrival they were double booked and did not have accommodation.
The US team ended up being dispersed as did some of the individual British and British team members. This caused unnecessary stress with some individuals being moved 3 or 4 times to different accommodation over the period of the event.
Easy Jet at Stansted created problems for a number of British competitors and refused to transport their weapons; competitors from Ireland had similar experiences with Monarch.
It has become obvious that the categorisation of targets introduced by Paris 1 Jan 2008 has lead to improved scores for the average competitor; the statistics for this event are: Class 'A' 100, Class 'B' 80, Class 'C' 20, (Class 'A' is the easier and the more challenging is Class 'C').
The two targets dropped by Richard Faulds? The Teal on Browning station 4 and Trap D ¼ down hill on Krieghoff station 1.
Hugh Smith
Chairman BICTSF FITASC Sporting
© Alan Rhone Limited 2007