World Cup, Munich

I've a few different topics to post up over the next while, relating to various things, but this deserves to be first I think!

Over the past while, shooting has very much taken a backseat. However, after the weekend at the WC, this has all changed. I've remembered my original purpose behind cycling, and how much I love shooting. To this end, an email has been sent to the office of the director of sport of the BSSB (in possibly my best German yet!), so hopefully that'll yield some nice dividends.

Anyway, onto the weekend itself. I don't think anything I can write here will do justice to what you see at this match. There is everyone and everything you have read, watched and wanted there. All the manufacturers, all the names we are so familiar with from Warren Potent, to Rajmond Debevech, to any other Olympic and World champion you care to mention who can still see down the sights, turning up. Seeing it all there gives a grand sense of occasion to the whole thing.

One thing I will say right now is that I am damn glad that I went to this before I even entertained the possibility of going as a competitor. There is nothing in Ireland or England to compare to this, and I've been to a few rather large matches in England. There's just a totally different scale of event here. Add to that Dave having a very casual chat with Potent about the state of his dislocated shoulder and you have a somewhat bizzare experience.

Before I go any further, I want to say well done to the Irish team that went over; Gary in prone, Ray in air rifle, and Peter in free pistol and air pistol. You were landed with a huge task and acquitted yourselves very well. Next year is the medal year :) Fair dues also to the team leader Liam, and coach Robb Stubbs for also going. Fair play especially to Dave who came over off his own back to support the team. Both him and myself will be hoping to go back sooner rather than later as competitors.

I won't talk about the shooting, there are reports online from the lads themselves about how they did. The only pics I managed to get are from the smallbore match on the Sunday. My camera decided to start beeping quite loudly when I tried to take some photos in the airgun range on Saturday :(

This pic was taken during Gary's match, not that you can tell. I have neither the camera nor the knowldge (OK, mostly the latter) to take a good shooting pic with the huge contrast required. Look at the range, though; beautifully lit, regulation flags, netting, mown  lawns. Baffles for 3p, and to keep the light out of shooters' faces as much as possible. It's a range designed for high scores, which were, I must say, astonishing. Normally in Munich, one could expect a 597 with maybe some inner ten countback to make the final. Not so this time. 598 and 599 only. Even the threshold for the qualifier was 591, which is well up there. Unfortunately, this means it'll be slightly harder to get through to the match next year for us Irische, but I'm sure at least some of us will manage it.

So yeah, fantastic weekend all around. Great shooting, great fun. Also, getting to talk to Heinrich Bleiker about his oh so nice barrelled actions was pretty cool. They are so tempting, but just outside what can be tolerated, investment-wise. For the moment. Since everything was there, I could get a good comparison of each brand, what they felt like, what the action was like, the balance, etc. I'll stick up another post on my thoughts about each, I think :)