Grauffel denied championship in Bali
Wahyoe Boediwardhana, The Jakarta Post, Sanur, Bali
World champion Eric Grauffel of France was denied a title of the AustralAsia Practical Shooting Championship after he ended up in second place here on Tuesday.
Grauffel fired a total of 1297.3773 points after completing 24 stages in the Open category of the event. Martin Kamenicek of The Czech Republic topped the standings with 1356.3097 points while Errol Thomas of Australia was in third with 1277.9465 points.
The standing might be changing with some shooters still having to complete their stages on Wednesday and Grauffel could probably dropped further back.
Praising the skills and ability showed by some of the participants, the French shooter disclosed that he was facing some very tough competition in the event.
"Especially Errol Thomas from Australia. He is the man, the one I have to look for," he said.
Grauffel, who took the best position at the 1999 and 2002 Practical Shooting World Championships, pointed out that participants from the Philippines and the United States had also displayed exceptional performances during the event.
He admitted that the AustralAsia Shooting Championship, a level IV competition, had presented the participants with quite a challenge.
Around 500 shooters from 32 countries are competing in the event, which will run until Wednesday.
"Difficult and very high level. The shooting target is very hard. I know. They are all different. You cannot say this one is more difficult than the other ones, they are all very difficult," he said.
However, he admitted that the most interesting stage was when the target took the form of a dragon.
"I have never seen a stage this unique and interesting, not even in the last World Championship in South Africa," he stressed.
The chairman of the AustralAsia's organizing committee, Bambang Trihatmodjo gave similar praise.
"Each stage has its own quality and level of difficulty. Both the shooter and the target are moving," he said.
Separately, Indonesian shooter Djoko Iman Santoso also praised the dragon stage. The stage had seven different targets arrayed along the dragon's head and body.
"We had to memorize the locations of all those spots and there was virtually no room for any mistake," he said.
According to Bambang Trihatmodjo all the stages were designed by the executive committee of the Indonesian Shooting and Hunting Association (Perbakin). The designs were submitted six months ago to the International Practical Shooting Confederation (IPSC) for approval.
In the Revolver category, Cholatit Chonboonyadej of Thailand led the standings followed by Slamet Riyadi of Indonesia and Kevin Pledger of Singapore.
Anthony SY of the Philippines kept his place in the Standard competition. Marian Vysny of Slovakia and Stefanos Cheropoulos of Greece were in second and third, respectively.
The Production competition already finished with Ernest Nagy of Slovakia winning with a total score of 1293.1300 points followed by Adam Tyc of the Czech Republic with 1149.1045 points and Moh. Alias B. Zakaria of Malaysia with 1147.5099 points.