Derek Burnett on RTE2

Sparks

Missed this, but it's up on the web now. RTE are doing a series on the upcoming Irish Olympic Team. Last night's episode covered Derek Burnett and clay pigeon shooting. From the ICPSA website:

Clay pigeon shooting will again be on RTE TV tonight and Derek Burnett features priominently on "Ireland's Olympians" on RTE2 at 7.30pm.

The show is repeated Saturday afternoon and will be available for download on RTE.ie with more details featured on www.rte.ie/sport/irelandsolympians

A book to accompany the series, "Ireland's Olympians - Beijing & Beyond" is in shops now, and features interviews with and pictures of Derek.

IRELAND'S OLYMPIANS-PROGRAMME 2:
TX : July 7
Irish Strengths
Boxing, Throwing, Shooting, Cycling, Walking

Featuring: Kenny Egan, Darren Sutherland (Boxing), Eileen O'Keeffe (Hammer), Derek Burnett (Shooting), Nicholas Roche, David O'Loughlin (Cycling), Robert Heffernan (Athletics)

Of the more than 300 gold medals to be awarded in an Olympics, just 47 can be won in athletics. A mere 34 are up for grabs in swimming, another of the highest-profile sports.

Recognising this, many nations have had significant success targeting events outside the mainstream, or by playing to their national strengths. Denmark has done well in badminton, handball and shooting, Sweden at jumps, Holland in hockey and cycling. In Athens, Australia finished fourth in the medals race, without winning a single athletics gold. Taking past performance in major championships as a guide, the statistics suggest that Ireland’s best Olympic hopes might lie in shooting, rowing, middle distance running, walking, hammer throwing, cycling and boxing.

Watch it - RTE2-Monday 7th July at 7.30pm.

A welcome bit of good PR...

jwshooter

Sparks wrote: »

Missed this, but it's up on the web now. RTE are doing a series on the upcoming Irish Olympic Team. Last night's episode covered Derek Burnett and clay pigeon shooting. From the ICPSA website:
A welcome bit of good PR...

RTE spent half a day setting up and talking to derek for only 3,4 mins .derek is one of the most modest shooters in the country and a true gentle man .i for one wish him fair winds .

G17

jwshooter wrote: »

derek is one of the most modest shooters in the country and a true gentle man .i for one wish him fair winds .

+1

bunny shooter

Good luck Derek

Vegeta

Yup couldn't agree more with you guys, well done that man and good luck.

pullandbang

I was talking to Derek and his coach Kevin Kilty recently. Two nicer people you couldn't meet. Pity Philip Murphy didn't get his wild card entry - he's another gent!

Derek is definitely one our best hopefuls for a medal in these games.

fish slapped

Yes best of luck to Derek and all the Irish taking part. C.P. was listed as a minority sport but I would be interested in seeing the stat.'s on how many people throw the hammer or sprint 100 meters or pole vault every weekend compared to how many shoot C.P. . Surely we're not in the minority and Derek and his team mates on international duties deserve more acknowledgement and funding. would you agree?

bunny shooter

fish slapped wrote: »

Yes best of luck to Derek and all the Irish taking part. C.P. was listed as a minority sport but I would be interested in seeing the stat.'s on how many people throw the hammer or sprint 100 meters or pole vault every weekend compared to how many shoot C.P. . Surely we're not in the minority and Derek and his team mates on international duties deserve more acknowledgement and funding. would you agree?

+1

bayliner

fish slapped wrote: »

Yes best of luck to Derek and all the Irish taking part. C.P. was listed as a minority sport but I would be interested in seeing the stat.'s on how many people throw the hammer or sprint 100 meters or pole vault every weekend compared to how many shoot C.P. . Surely we're not in the minority and Derek and his team mates on international duties deserve more acknowledgement and funding. would you agree?

absolutely 100%.....c p shooting has to be up there with athletics as a popular sport... but i suppose it doesnt make good television so is claimed to be a minority sport.... which is a bit irritating really!
would like to see more on the box...........

fish slapped

Would anyone have the stat's on the No. of C.P. shooters in the country and we could template an E-mail to let RTE know how we feel on the subject??
It's not just Derek but all our shooters who have put money and time into the sport without "aid or grant" and represent our country but do not get the coverage from a fearfull RTE who want to be P.C. WHEN THEY CHOOSE!!

bayliner

fish slapped wrote: »

Would anyone have the stat's on the No. of C.P. shooters in the country and we could template an E-mail to let RTE know how we feel on the subject??

excellent question ,,,would be very interesting to see what sort of figure we could come up with..
have some contacts within the nargc so will see if can get ball park figure there though hard to know if could get a number on it ..
westmeath county shoot would have roughly 80 to 100 guns of course that doesnt include registered shooters at other disciplines...

rrpc

The ICPSA is the governing body for clay shooting in Ireland not the NARGC which is mainly concerned with game shooing.

According to the latest ICPSA classification, there are 1173 classified CP shooters in Ireland.

There may be a good deal more, but these are ICPSA members taking part in regular registered competitions.

Sparks

Yeah, but the NARGC runs clay pigeon matches as well - they hold some sort of national clay pigeon match and get a lot of the wildfowlers/farmers who shoot a little clay pigeon on the side. You'd really have to add both together to get the real numbers.

bunny shooter

Sparks wrote: »

Yeah, but the NARGC runs clay pigeon matches as well - they hold some sort of national clay pigeon match and get a lot of the wildfowlers/farmers who shoot a little clay pigeon on the side. You'd really have to add both together to get the real numbers.

+1 and there are clay grounds not registered with ICPSA, for instance there is clay shooting at Midlands. And Hilltop ?

Bananaman

The combined numbers from ICPSA and NARGC are still probably quite low.

At a guess perhaps two-thirds to a half of the total number of clay shooters - in fairness it is the only numbers you could quote when listing statistics - however, the truly "amateur" numbers should be quite a bit higher.

I, for one, am an avid clay pigeon shooter and am a member of no CP organisation but my own Club (Hilltop) as I have never shot clays anywhere else yet - I regularly shoot with 10-15 lads who are in the same boat and that's just the once or twice a week that I shoot clays. As far as I know there's a group, in the same boat, shooting most days.

B'Man

Sparks

You're talking about an unestimatable number then B'man - you can't take the number of shotguns as a guide, because most of those are the single-barrel ones kept by farmers for magpies. And I don't think you'd ever get the number of O/U or semi-auto shotguns from the Gardai because of the manpower it'd take to haul that up from PULSE; and even then, you've no way of knowing if clay pigeon is what they're used for.

Meanwhile, every paper is carrying the story that we can't hope for any medals from Beijing. In fact the Indo is even saying that our only hope for a medal is from people like Derek (and that if we don't get anything we'll start trying to eat our own young again). If Derek does bring home a medal (and frankly, he's the best hope we have for that), it will do more for the image of shooting in Ireland than anything in the last 30 years.

bayliner

Sparks wrote: »

Yeah, but the NARGC runs clay pigeon matches as well - they hold some sort of national clay pigeon match and get a lot of the wildfowlers/farmers who shoot a little clay pigeon on the side. You'd really have to add both together to get the real numbers.

the nargc all ireland championships are on next weekend with the counties competing on sat and the clubs representing their counties on the sun(these clubs qualify for this by winning their respective county shoots)..
the leinster championships were on over the last 2 weekends, with dublin being crowned leinster champions and westmeath 2nd and meath 3rd..
the previous weekend baylin gun club(westmeath) won the leinster club championship with bellewstown(meath) 2nd...
it is all shot over sporting traps...while some of the shooters in these competitions are indeed registered with the ICPSA there ARE those who are not like myself...for that reason it would be incredibly difficult to put a number on cp shooters as you would most likely be counting people twice:D..

there are other disciplines such as u21s, ladies, veterans, and super veterans and pool shoots on the day too at these championships..
so to us who compete in these comps its alittle bit more than "some sort of national match"...and we are not all farmers or wildfowlers:D
though some are......actually quite a few:D:D....

Sparks

its alittle bit more than "some sort of national match"

No offence intended bayliner...

fish slapped

it's still more people than run 100 meters or throw the hammer and our shooters are based in Ireland, not living in the states for the past 10 years.