Grauffel denied championship in Bali

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.