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Irish Team at the Beijing World Cup 2008
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10-05-2008 12:34pm#1Shamelessly stolen from the ICPSA website. Originally written by Kevin Kilty and if you think it's hard work posting stuff from a meeting in Mullingar, you ought to try posting from a match in Beijing!
The ISSF World Cup in Beijing is a test event for the forthcoming Olympic Games in August. It has attracted the largest contingent of contenders so far seen as it is a combined event with rifle, pistol and shotgun events competing simultaneously and ICPSA High Performance Director Kevin Kilty will be posting reports from China outling each days events. (Final results now included)
Ireland is represented in the Olympic Trap event by Derek Burnett, Philip Murphy and Colin Tanner with David Goulding and Thomas O’Grady in the MQS positions and they are accompanied by the programme support staff of sports psychologist Professor Peter Terry and physiotherapist Judy Murphy.
Arriving in Beijing the squad could not but notice the thick pall of smog sitting over the city and while the temperatures are mild being in and around 20 degrees the smog enveloping the city is constant and immovable. The forecast has rain predicted for the next few days coming up to the start of the Olympic Trap competition but whether this will clear the smog remains to be seen.
The time adjustment of GMT plus eight hours takes its toll early on in the trip and getting sufficient quality rest is difficult. These extra couple of days before the competition are critical to adjusting the body to this new time zone and to ensure that jet lag is not a factor in the competition. Changes in diet, rest patterns and overall fatigue from travel all need to be worked through the system before we can expect to perform at full strength.
Entry to the competition venue is strictly controlled and for the purposes of testing the logistics and resources required to host this summers Olympics this ISSF World Cup is being run as though it were the actual games themselves with the same degree of security, administration and timing.
Each step of the competition and the preparations is being timed by Chinese officials to ensure that the final timetable for the games is realistic and achievable. Issues identified now can be addressed in time for the summer and the concerns of competitors and management are taken onboard.
Today Monday 7th April is still a rest day for the squad with some members relaxing by taking a tour of the Great Wall while others such as myself are catching up on the paper work and planning that goes hand in hand with this level of competition.
Every hour of each new day sees more teams arrive at the hotel and today the Kuwait team arrived just after midnight and this morning over breakfast old acquaintances from our earlier training camps were renewed. Tomorrow will see the first opportunity to visit the venue when we will attend for the accreditation process.
Entry to all aspects of the venue and even the breakfast room in the hotel will be strictly limited to accreditation holders. It’s as simple as no accreditation pass, no entry or indeed no breakfast. Access to practice rounds will be limited but by turning up early tomorrow we hope to secure enough places to satisfy our requirements. An early start and a travel time of an hour will hopefully see us to the venue in good time to beat the majority of teams to registration.0
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Unofficial Training 8th April
Today was an early start with breakfast at 6am and onto the bus en-route to the venue for 6:50. With effect from today official accreditation must be worn by all contingent members at all times in order to access any areas associated with the competition and already some countries have run foul of this by not wearing their id cards and several teams were left sitting on the bus awaiting clearance while the rest of us sped towards the venue which worked out at about an hours travel time from the base hotel.
Upon arrival at the shooting centre we were dropped off at the athletes’ rest area but information is thin on the ground so it was left up to everyone to find their own way around.
First on our agenda for the day was to secure adequate training slots and to arrange for ammunition to train. Peter and I made our way to the competition management office and got first in line for the training slots where we then split up to arrange for the purchase of sufficient ammunition for the day.
The security is so tight at the venue that a guard is placed at the door to the armoury and the ammunition stores and access is strictly controlled and one by one each gun must be visual checked to verify its serial number before being released. A major problem hit all teams when upon purchasing the tokens for ammunition as it turned out that the venue did not have any on site at the moment and while a major storm was brewing over this the local volunteers tried their best to assuage the fear and anxiety that was setting in all around.
After a delay of an hour or there abouts the ammunition arrived and the fears subsided.
Ireland was one of the first squads out on range and the layouts look superb.
A feature of this event is the use of flash targets in the qualification rounds and the targets are filled with green powder for the initial stages and red powder will be used for finals. As in Athens the traps in sue are Laporte but the clays are manufactured locally in China.
The fog/smog is still prevalent and obscures the background quite a bit but the early training did not suffer as a result with both Derek Burnett and Philip Murphy shooting two rounds of practice with each finishing on a score of 49.
Tomorrow sees two further rounds of unofficial training in the afternoon and whilst it hasn’t rained here yet it does look like we will get a spell at some point over the next few days.0 -
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Day 1 Qualification 12th April
An early start for the support team who were having breakfast at 6am in order to catch the 6:20am bus to the venue. Today is a holiday in Beijing and the bus got here in record time. Teams are now settling in and preparing for an intense day of competition and the early start is to tie in with the actual timings at the games with each day’s competition finishing at approximately 2:30.
It is interesting to see that Australia’s Michael Diamond has not turned up for the competition even though he was expected to attend and his failure to show must be very disappointing for the Australian team.
It was obvious from the start that the weather was going to play major part in the early rounds as high wind swept across the range left to right accompanied by flurries of rain. Early on David was making the most of the conditions as targets fell away from other shooters and following his first loss at the 9th target he kept going to his 17th where he succumbed to three in a row. David finished up on 19 which all things being even was not a bad start compared to many on the field.
Philip and Derek were up next and from the off Philip was in some difficulty and having had little quality sleep over the previous days he found it hard to get his concentration straight and paid a heavy price for this with an extremely rare score of 18. Derek was also having trouble particularly with the quality of referees. His opening target was a slow pull and Derek pulled off the target to be greeted with the referee calling it lost. A protest ensued which Derek won but this inauspicious start unsettled him and the repeat target was missed. Having recovered well Derek went on but was caught three more times with slow pulls and had to settle for an opening 21.
Colin also fared badly with a 19 on the opening round as the weather was taking its toll and reducing the competition to a war of attrition while best of the Irish in the opening rounds was Thomas O’Grady who made the most of the conditions to post an excellent 23.
The second series of rounds was also going to be difficult and David kept his pace when repeating his opening score of 19.
Philip however came in stronger with the exception of a slight speed bump which cost him three targets in a row at 9, 10 and 11 after which he went on to finish with a score of 22.
Thomas kept his fighting spirit intact and came romping back with a 22. The second series took a different tack especially for Derek when with a lull in the wind and a brighter period of weather in place he took advantage of the conditions with a straight run of 25 while Colin fought back with a 21.
The final round of the day saw Derek slip back with a 22 following a back to back miss mid way and the rest of the squad fought back hard with Philip finishing with a 21, Tom 22, David 20 and Colin on 21.
General consensus on the day would indicate that the targets have a tendency to lose momentum very suddenly after achieving peak flight and then to dip suddenly towards the ground. The prevailing wind exacerbates this action and throughout the day the slim amount of straights shot would back this opinion.
The amount of scores being given purely on the basis of visible powder and no visible breaks was far too high to have confidence in the accuracy of the scoring and as the use of flash targets in the main competition was controversial to begin with I doubt that the story will end here.
Consequently, the refereeing has caused a few concerns but it would appear to be a lack of practical experience by the referees which is the root cause. The handling of protests and malfunctions has tested the referees but they have come through with assistance from the juryand many stories abound of targets which have not been hit but still scored; such is the confusion as to the use of powder. The acuity of the eyesight of the referees is being tested and they are erring on the side of caution while they are receiving very little help from the side referees who appear to be taking their cue from the referee on decisions.
Tomorrow sees Derek take to the line first and all we can hope for is a smoother start and more consistent programme than today.0 -
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