GB FITASC Sporting Team Performance Report - Australia 2009

Report on the GB FITASC Sporting Team Performance At
The 31st Worlds FITASC Sporting Championships
Warrnambool Victoria Australia
16 - 22 November 2009

The Laang shooting range is located approximately 250 Km South West of Melbourne near the costal town of Warrnambool. The region is dairy farmland with several species of Eucalyptus it is also the home of the Koala Bear.

The ground, under the guidance of Steve Chilton President of Laang Range had made a lot of effort to accommodate the domestic requirements of the 650 plus competitors from 26 countries booked in for this event.

4 British Referees took part; Leigh Houlgrave, Des Belam, Mike Cotton and Hugh Smith.

GB was represented by 3 teams; Seniors, Veterans and Juniors. There was no Super Veterans or Ladies teams however, Alan Coy who had qualified for the GB Super Veterans team and Sarah Hamburger who qualified for the Ladies team also made the journey to Laang Range.

There where 4 courses set for the competition all had 5 stands per layout, the courses where named:

Beretta, Corsivia GB, Winchester/Browning and Blaser F3.

The layouts were in rolling open meadow land supplemented by a number of mechanical high lifts with good use of the undulating often steep terrain, it was considered a 'Green Field' site.

Hans Venger President of the FITASC Sporting Technical Commission and Glen Rider Australian representative of the FITASC Sporting Technical Commission vetted, categorised and authorised the targets.

Target Categorisation:

Cat A 57. Cat B 110. Cat C 33. (Cat C = most difficult)

Normally there would be 8 layouts provided for World class championships disappointingly Ray McFarlane Vice President of FITASC Oceania and joint Chairman of the event organising committee authorised 4 layouts with a change after 100 targets for the final 100 targets. This change was minimalist and was in the form of shooting position change only, hardly what you would expect for a World Championship. Ray was also individually responsible for setting all the competition targets.

The competition ran over four days; as usual the first day is a settling in period with not a lot to report, however, George Digweed posted 49 ex 50 with Damien Birgan (AU) also posting 49 with Mark Marshall (GB) 48.

On completion of day two Blaser was shooting tougher than the other layouts with Beretta close behind. There were 6 maximum scores posted on the other 3 layouts and none on Blaser.

The Statistics for the first 100 targets are as follows:

Beretta 63.3% Corsivia GB 66% Winchester 66.9% Blaser 63.7%

Damien Birgan now led by one target over George Digweed 95/94 with John Younger (AU) 93 and Mark Marshall 93 (GB).

In the team placings the Australian Senior team had the lead with 352, USA 351and GB 346.

GB was leading the Veterans 234 with France on 221 and Australia 220.

Allan Coy (GB) Super Vets was competing well on 78 only 4 targets behind the lead William Falls (USA) and Joe Cantey (USA) 80.

The GB Juniors were lying in 6th place and would struggle to compete however they were a well bonded team with a lot to learn and did not let their heads drop.

RESULTS (Individuals).

Seniors: Damien Birgan (AU) 187, George Digweed (GB) 186, Mark Marshall (GB) 184

Ladies: Beatrice Laparra (SP) 149, Celine Rodde (FR) 145, Katiuscia Spada (IT) 144+21, Inna Aleksandrova (RU) 144+15 and Ira Kirenska 144+15.

Juniors: Davide Gasparini (IT) 175, Bastien Harvart (FR) 171, Abel Spire (USA) 170.

Veterans: John Dyson (GB) 166, Neville Jay (GB) 165, Randy Travalia (USA) 161.

Super Vets: Joe Cantey (USA) 159, Alan Coy (GB) 155, William Falls (USA) 154.

Team placing were as follows:

Seniors: Gold GB 707, Silver Australia 696, Bronze, USA 688.

GB Team: Mark Marshall 184, Mark Vessey 179, Martin Myers, 174 and Shawn Stacey, 170.

Ladies: Gold France 410. Silver Australia 406. Bronze Italy 388.

Juniors: Gold Italy 510. Silver USA 479. Bronze France 460.

GB Team: Harry Seal 151, Chris Papworth 149, Luke Llewellin 148.

Vets: Gold GB 471. Silver Australia 437, Bronze France 435.

GB Team: John Dyson 166, Martin Reynolds 158, Brendon Frost 147.

Super Vets: Gold USA 464, Silver Italy 399. Bronze France 395.

The Senior GB Team overcame a 6 target deficiency turning it into an 11 target win
All the GB Team members worked hard to earn a magnificent team result of 2 team Golds and individual achievements of Gold for John Dyson Veteran, Silver for Alan Coy Super Veteran, Bronze for Mark Marshall Seniors, also Neville Jay although not in the GB team for this event won Silver in Veterans.

All team members were exceptional ambassadors for their country, worthy of note was the efforts of John Dyson as GB Team Captain to keep all the GB teams working as one over the whole of the event and at the same time winning Gold in Veterans.

Statistics for final 100 Targets:

Beretta: 65.3% Corsivia: 66.3% Winchester: 64.8% Blaser: 58.1%

Total: 64.3% over 4 days competition with 9 Maximum Scores (25)

In addition, many thanks to Mike Haw Hull Cartridge Company, for your support of Team GB FITASC Sporting 2009. Also to Ray Mcfarlane for his assistance in overcoming the difficulties we experienced late in the day prior to travelling to the event.

Lessons Learnt:

Countries hosting major International events often overlook what is considered the 'norm' for their own nation.
Late in the day I was informed that Juniors under the age of 18 would not be allowed into Australia with their own firearm; this provoked a flurry of activity in finding a workaround to this new problem.

The problem was overcome by transferring ownership to an adult travelling with the Junior.

Do not rely on the air ticket provider to understand or convey the rules for exporting private firearms; again 10 days before the off it was discovered that Singapore required additional paperwork as did a number of other countries. Again after much angst one team member resorted to hiring a gun another was held over in Frankfurt for 10 hours (Linda Cleary IR) and then eventually sent on her way.

Hugh Smith
Chairman BICTSF FITASC Sporting.

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