RIAC 2011

MiGiD

Peter's Finished for the day and Ray and Mark are in action now.

http://www.fltas.lu/riac_results/riac_2011/live/

It wasn't me!

585 for Ray, another new Irish international record for him! Going into the final in seventh place. Don't see him moving anywhere though as his nearest competitors are 581 on one side and 590 on the other. Good shooting though. Mark's had a good one as well, 568, not a bad international debut for him! Will be good to see how they get on in the second match tomorrow now.

fat-tony

100.8 for Ray giving a total of 685.8 - no change in position. Great to see an Irish shooter in the final!

It wasn't me!

Another good day. Mark had 567, which, while a point less than yesterday, looks a lot better with some stronger strings. Looks like he was much more relaxed and happy with more deep tens. Hope he feels the same. Great result for a first international anyway.

Ray's gone on again to wipe out his own record all over again! Another 7th place finish after the final with 589 and 98.8 in the final. Really excellent shooting. Best of luck to Ray in the rest of his year. He's certainly flying along at the moment.

Both of the rifle guys had great, consistent performances. Delighted for both of them, but not to forget Peter Friend, who shot 556 and 560 in the pistol events. He's coming along nicely and performing consistently as well. Hopefully he'll soon have company with more pistol shooters representing Ireland in airgun.

Cass

Great news for the lads. Well done.

Sparks

Cheers guys - it was an excellent trip, that 568 on day one equaled my domestic competition PB which was nice as it meant I hadn't lost too much from the pressure; Peter made a lot of progress with his match training and didn't do too badly on his scores; and of course Ray set the new Irish record for Men's Air Rifle twice over two days while going up against some of the best shooters around (including an Olympic Gold medalist from Athens):



Everyone on the team learnt new things about their shot and match routines and their mental game, and found the things they now want to spend the next few weeks working on as they try to qualify to go to Intershoot and the European Championships in February (hopefully with a larger team).

It was a fantastic range - it's only a temporary setup on the local archery range, but the facilities were better than anything we have here











170+ shooters from 16 countries competing in air rifle and air pistol events (8 divisions all told; Men, Junior Men, Women, Junior Women, in both air rifle and air pistol) over three days. Coverage in all the local press media:



And on the news channel's main sports section:





And I think I'm going to remember this for a long time:



10 shots left to go, 5 minutes left on the clock (they'd just called the warning as I started the shot), I'm the last shooter left on the line, and there's about 200 people standing around watching either behind me on the floor or above me in the observation deck (including a camera team from India who were doing a documentary about Abhinav Bindra and the Indian team working towards the London Games), and of course, my target on the large projection screens so they could all see if I fluffed it (and you folks back here as well, who we also had in mind!). Now that's pressure

Sparks

Oh, and a few of the manufacturers were there as well, so I got to play with the new Walther:



And we got to look at the new Mouche synthetic material for their new suit:



The kit price seems to be going up radically, mind you - Walther's LG400 is going for nearly €3.5k if you get the fully pimped version (that's a grand over the average price for a new olympic air rifle) and the Mouche suit has to be made to measure in their factory and goes for a cool €1900 - so you'd have not too much change from €2400 by the time you flew there, had it made and came home, which is about twice the price of the top-of-the-line made-to-measure suits from everyone else.
:eek:

Cass

Thats some set up for a temp range. As for;

Sparks wrote: »

And I think I'm going to remember this for a long time:

One thing that springs to mind;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6FUJULLNbk

Congrats to all once again.:cool::)

It wasn't me!

Now would you take that poxy jacket out behind the shed and do the decent thing?!

Sparks

It wasn't me! wrote: »

Now would you take that poxy jacket out behind the shed and do the decent thing?!

Yeah, it really has to go. I had to cut even more out of it over there (the bits between the buttons hadn't been cut back to single thickness yet) and it's even worse for it, if you can imagine that. (For those who've not seen my suit up close, it's about ten years old, you'd get more stabilisation from a burlap sack, it doesn't fit properly anymore and I've had to take a razor blade to the seams of both shoulders and hack them open)

The thing is, I need to get back to the gym, that'll change my shape sufficiently that getting a top-of-the-line made to measure suit now wouldn't be a great idea, and definitely dropping €2.4k on the Mouche 3D suit is out for the moment (though when you see it up close, and how breathable and light it is - it weighs half what a normal canvas and leather suit weighs - it's very, very tempting).

So I think I'm just going to have to get a new jacket now, something not quite top tier, but still made to measure (I don't fit standard sizes, my shoulders are too wide ) and get a new entire suit later on.

sbw

Sparks wrote: »

10 shots left to go, 5 minutes left on the clock (they'd just called the warning as I started the shot), I'm the last shooter left on the line, and there's about 200 people standing around watching either behind me on the floor or above me in the observation deck (including a camera team from India who were doing a documentary about Abhinav Bindra and the Indian team working towards the London Games), and of course, my target on the large projection screens so they could all see if I fluffed it (and you folks back here as well, who we also had in mind!). Now that's pressure

I watched your first two matches and taking 40 minutes on your sighters didn't help Glad you had such a great experience.

Last year I went to the Munich Airgun match and saw Barbara Lechner shoot in the ladies air rifle match. She was one of the last to finish and after 39 shots, she'd hit 39 tens. A huge crowd had gathered around her. The atmosphere was intense. She took her last shot...nine. And a huge groan from sounded out from the crowd.

Sparks

sbw wrote: »

I watched your first two matches and taking 40 minutes on your sighters didn't help

Darn right
But I did figure out what really worked well for me for the sighters over the few days, so I now have a proper plan for how to approach them.

Last year I went to the Munich Airgun match and saw Barbara Lechner shoot in the ladies air rifle match. She was one of the last to finish and after 39 shots, she'd hit 39 tens. A huge crowd had gathered around her. The atmosphere was intense. She took her last shot...nine. And a huge groan from sounded out from the crowd.

D'Oh....

Sparks

RTL had some footage of the match, see here for the replay (it starts at 28:50, so fast forward a bit)

tac foley

A great post, Sparks and all. A VERY big thanks from over here.

Some great shooting from the Irish team. We have the Beijing paralympic Gold Medal air rifle shooter, Matt Skelhon, in our club. I bought his previous Feinwerkbau rifle off him to assist him a little with the upgrade. Needless to say, it doesn't shoot anywhere near as well for me as it did for him...

Next time I'm over on your side of the water I might bring it with me to 'move it on' to a more deserving shooter than THIS old fart.

tac

LCrawford

It's like what I have been telling Sparks for years. Never mind "boards" and concentrate on your shooting. A fantastic début for him on the international scene. A great performance from the whole team. It's a pity we didn't have one more male air rifle shooter out there, maybe we could have won a team prize.


On another note, I had the pleasure of meeting Matt a few times this year. A fine shot and a fine rc helicopter pilot. He will be hard to beat in London next year, all going well.

Cass

LCrawford wrote: »

It's like what I have been telling Sparks for years. Never mind "boards" and concentrate on your shooting..

Sacrilege.:eek:;):D

Sparks

Ezridax wrote: »

Sacrilege.:eek:;):D

His Excellency sometimes has odd ideas
(Not that there haven't been days...)

Sparks

LCrawford wrote: »

It's a pity we didn't have one more male air rifle shooter out there, maybe we could have won a team prize.

True, that. The other team scores were well within reach.
Hopefully we'll have enough qualified and trained for Intershoot in February!

Sparks

Now that Intershoot is done and dusted and the Europeans too, I finally got round to writing up RIAC (there are Intershoot writeups and some stuff to do with pellets and so on to come yet):

• Pre-RIAC
• The trip out and RIAC Day 1
• RIAC Day 2
• RIAC Day 3 and coming home
• Notes for next time