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Report on the GB FITASC World Sporting Team Performance - Konopiste Czech Republic, 12-15 July 2007

Report on the GB FITASC World Sporting Team Performance At Konopiste Czech Republic July 12th to 15th 2007

The World Championship event was held within the grounds of the Konopiste estate some 40 kilometres from the centre of Prague near the town of Benisov.

The grounds are part of the state owned company Forests of the Czech Republic and covers over 18,000 hectares given over to forestry game shooting and clay shooting.
The area covered by the championships was 'Green Field' site and the course was spread over two sites of more than 4 kilometres.

The shoot sold out within a week of the entries opening and eventually closed on slightly less than 1,000 competitors from over 30 nations.

There where 8 courses set for the competition all had 4 stands per layout, the courses where named:

Forest Enterprise, Browning, Stora Enso, Laporte, Krieghoff, Hull, Blaser, and Beretta.

All the layouts with the exception of Browning required transportation this was provided in the form of 30 to 50 seat bus, these ran at 10 min intervals all day from 07:00 until all the layouts were clear of competitors.

The course was set by Miroslav Jankovsky and he was also responsible for the administration of the event, the administration was faultless and the event infrastructure likewise.

There were 48 referees representing: Great Britain, Germany, Latvia, Cyprus, Italy, France, Hungary and the Czech Republic, there were also 64 trap operators allowing the referee free movement to correctly carry out their duties free of hindrance of cables and release equipment.

Hugh Smith (GB) was the overall head referee he was also responsible for the event competition staff, ultimately ensuring the equity of the competition was maintained.

The competition ran over four days; as usual the first day is a settling in period with not a lot to report, however, initially it looked as though the four course assessors,
Miroslav Jankovsky, (CZ) Glen Rider (Australia) Hans Wenger (Switzerland) Hugh Smith (GB) had set an over difficult course, the scores were markedly lower than expected and many competitors expressed their concerns.

Day two saw similarly low scores being posted but the more proficient competitors were posting satisfactory scores with the less proficient struggling to post better than 20.
However, what started to become clear was that the targets were not breaking as normal when hit and it was patently clear they had been well hit.

Targets were continuing in flight for some 20 to 30 meters then falling into 2 or three pieces, if this occurred when shooting doubles the referee and the competitors were unaware of this phenomenon leading to a few difficult moments.

A quick investigation by Hugh Smith into the identity of the manufacturer of these targets discovered they were Laporte Ecological targets and were very resistant to shot strikes.

An examination of several targets produced a rabbit target with 58 pellet strikes and was still intact and a standard target recovered from 30 meters from the shooting position with 13 strikes; clearly this was a contributory factor for these lower scores.

On completion of day two it became obvious that certain layouts would shoot tougher than others, Beretta stand one and Krieghoff stand one claimed many scalps.

George Digweed led the field at this stage on 89 with Paulo Cleto (Port) 87, Sean Bramley (GB) 86 Richard Faulds 85.

In the team placing the USA Senior team had the lead on 327, with Australia 312, Italy on 308, GB down in fifth place 305. The Ladies saw GB 199, Russia 189, and Australia 87. Juniors had GB 233, USA 230 and Italy 228.

GB was leading the Veterans 213, Swiss 202 and USA 200. Finally the USA Super Veterans were 195, Italy 193 and GB 192.

Clearly all the categories would be fighting to the end and a true 4-day competition was evolving.

The teams moved closer on the third day it would take a strong mental attitude to ignore the lower scores and press on regardless to produce a winning score.

Also aggressive filming by a CZ cameraman started to effect the topflight shooters.
This 'Professional' to a point, was constantly harassing George Digweed and Richard Faulds, when on Blaser four, Hugh Smith had to intervene and warn this cameraman that he would be ejected from the event if he continued in his aggressive manner.

He also harassed Cheryl Hall to a point were it could be argued he partially destroyed her concentration, this would be reflected in the final days competition.

In the seniors Ben Hustwaite now began to threaten the lead of the top three, Richard 133, George 132, and Ben 128. Ladies saw Diane Sorentino (USA) 114, Inna Alexandrova 109 and Cheryl Hall 107. Juniors Joey Bolton (USA) Brett Winstanley (GB) and Mark Winser (GB) 122 very tight.

Veterans, Jean Claude Bertaud (FR) 114, Ken Rist (GB) 113, and Steve Checketts, John Dyson and Dave Hallet all (GB) 112.

Super Vets, Joe Cantey (USA) 120, Philippe Vialfont (FR) 111Hans Oosterveen (NL) 107.

All was set for a final day with the individual and team leaders constantly changing it was almost any one in the top 10 that could win their title.

Come the finish, Faulds slipped on Bertta with a 19 and Digweed looking like he would snatch the title needing 21 on Krieghoff well within the great mans capabilities. Disaster struck on stand 1 dropping four targets, with a final score of 17 he handed the crown to Faulds and the final insult allowed Husthwaite to leap frog into silver.

Faulds 175, Husthwaite 173, Digweed 172.

Ladies, Sorantino (USA) 149, Hall (GB) 146, Steinkraus (D) 145.

Juniors, Winstanley B (GB) 161, Bolton (USA) 160, Spada (I) 157.

Vets, Dyson (GB) 155, Bidwell (GB) 146 + 21, Bertaud (FR) 146 + 16 Woodley (GB) 146 + 14.

S Vets, Cantey (USA) 155, Ward (GB) 143, Oosterveen (NL) 149.

Medal Count for Team GB:

2 Gold, 2 Silver and 1 Bronze

Individual Team Members:

1 Gold, 3 Silver.

30 Nations took part.

All in all a very good result yet again with a number of personal achievements inside and out side of the GB team from GB Shooters.

The team behaved magnificently under tough competition conditions; the put in a workman like performance and once again for 2007 brought home the trophies.

Congratulations to all Team GB and especially to Cheryl Hall taking a hard fought Silver off Inna and only 3 adrift of Sarantino.

Hugh Smith Chairman BICTSF FITASC Sporting

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