demonstration of perfection came to an end, dropping what he described as ‘a right to left floppy looper’ in the singles which meant that he had to straight the rest of the event if he hoped to break the world record score of 198 shot by Richard Faulds two years ago in Cyprus. Unsurprisingly Ben was still chasing hard, finishing the day just three adrift of George though Myers (140) lost a little ground and Auvret was still third on 143. Conditions were particularly difficult in the afternoon with a staggering 118.4 being recorded in the shade on EuroTarget peg 1, which led to the on site medical team having to deal with a few cases of heat exhaustion. In ladies, things were static but in juniors Phil Gray had shot 50 straight to move within three targets of leader Spada (139) and level with Chris Papworth. Stirzaker now shared the vets lead with John Woolley on 137 whilst Bidwell was just two behind. Super vet Taylor was still sitting pretty at the top of the class but Colin Foden was still keeping him honest though the gap had now stretched to five. The final day saw George starting at
seven in the morning on the Fiocchi layout, an ideal time to avoid the worst of the heat which thanks to the cloud cover was lower than on previous days, so much so that it was still a ‘cool 87 degrees at 9.30. No surprise then that George put in another 25 which meant Ben would need the 16 times World Champion to drop the ball quite badly on his last layout, Promatic, to give him a chance to overtake and steal the win at the last. A straight on Rizzini was just what Ben needed and that was what he delivered, both shooters now under extreme pressure. As George with crowd in tow started
on Promatic, Ben stood watching, and his heart must have quickened when George missed one of the singles with both barrels. “I didn’t attack it enough and missed it over the top,” he explained later. Deciding that he would be better off with his other barrels George went back to his kit bag, sitting amongst the crowd but by the time he had found it, swapped barrels and got back to the peg he was straight on to shoot the doubles without having seen them and he then dropped another target; to say the crowd was surprised would be an understatement. If Ben had needed any further
motivation then those two dropped targets
How the layouts stacked up Layout name Promatic Rizzini
Eurotarget
Average Score 18.8 17.9 18
32 | PULL! September 2010
would surely be it as he headed off to start his final layout; Eurotarget. As it was he would shoot a 24, meaning that George could afford to drop one more target on Promatic and still take the win but at that point he had no way of knowing. The crowd moved on with George from peg to peg, the tension rising with each target shot until the last was broken. A 23 was the result meaning that he had finished on a magnificent 197 and that Ben’s efforts had been in vain. More importantly from George’s perspective he had succeeded in realising his long held ambition of winning a world title in the four decades in which he has been competing. “I’m very proud of that; as a sportsman
there are very few in any sport who will ever achieve it. I just wanted to go out and break as many targets as possible. It’s always difficult to go out and defend a big lead, a score like that doesn’t come along very often, it was just one of those events where everything went right. Normally speaking if you shot 190 on this course you would have expected to win it. There are those saying that the targets were too easy, well I think that’s rubbish; it’s belittling what the top shooters have achieved and it’s mostly being said by people who have shot badly themselves. “They put on the targets for a world
championship, they are the targets and you have got to shoot them, get on with it, deal with it. I think it’s been a very well run shoot; the Italians haven’t been shooting this discipline for very long and to put on a championship of this magnitude and to do it so well reflects well on the club and the Italian governing body. ” In ladies Laparra took the gold on 180,
Cheryl taking silver (175) and Stefanie Steinkraus of Germany securing the bronze (169) whilst in Juniors the top three remained as the day before; Spada (188), Gray (185) and Papworth (183) though Phil Gray’s performance shooting 99 out of the last 100 was in a word ‘heroic’. Veteran Stirzaker battled it out with
Woolley to the last, Graham taking the win by a single target and in super vets Taylor finished as he had started…in front with David Payne taking silver. In the team event GB finished fifth in
the seniors, second in ladies, juniors and super vets and gold in vets, thanks to the hard work of John Pool, Steve Brightwell and Stirzaker.
Krieghoff Benelli Elfipa
Beretta Fiocchi
18.9 17.6 18.3 18.4 19.2
www.cpsa.co.uk
The veterans won gold and a bonus for Pool, who also took the vets World Cup
Close range targets Spada style
Phil Gray had a productive week
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