Grauffel in 7th on first day at AustralAsia

Wahyoe Boediwardhana, The Jakarta Post, Sanur, Bali

World champion Eric Grauffel of France ended the opening day of the AustralAsia Practical Shooting Championship 2004, here on Monday, in seventh place on provisional standings.

Competing in the Open category, equipped with a handgun super auto caliber 38, Grauffel had to be content with collected points of 687.1451.

Chavananand Voravith of Thailand topped the standings with 1304.1537 points.

Djoko Iman Santoso of Indonesia followed in second place with 1052.9747 points, on a day when the home marksmen posed a generally moderate performance in the initial challenge.

Another two local competitors, Gerry Sutanandika and Hendradjaya, amassed 932.1797 points and 840.2435 points in fourth and sixth places respectively.

A mediocre performance was displayed by Bambang Trihatmodjo, who is also director of the Indonesian Practical Shooting Association. He languished in 31st place among 131 participants in the Open category.

As many as 480 shooters from 32 countries are competing in Level Four of the tournament, divided into four categories of competition.

In the other three categories -- Revolver, Production, and Standard -- Indonesian shooters had yet to show their edge.

Slamet Riyadi collected 1283.0734 points in the Revolver category to stay behind pacesetter Cholatit Chonboonyadej of Thailand, who shot 1667.5472 points.

Agus Muryono, with 1135.2331 points, Eko Widi (1047.5276 points), I Made Darma (987.0531 points) and Edi Marsey Sugijanto (842.8232 points) ended up between fourth and seventh places.

Sudarno, Husin Hidayat, Yuneldi Lenaldo, Hengky Permana, Suyanto, Bagus Yontaka, Abdul Rahman Saleh, and Wawi Unang were placed between fifth and 12th in the Standard competition, led, on top of the standings, by Anthony SY of the Philippines.

Moh. Alias Bin Zakaria of Malaysia struck early to lead the Production category with 1290.5667 points. The closest local opposition was offered by Hadidi and Ronaldy, who followed in fourth and fifth places with 1040.5753 points and 1037.8636 points respectively.

Hendradjaya, who is also deputy chairman of the organizing committee, said that the standings would be subject to alteration, given the remaining stages of the competition.

"They have to complete 24 stages. Then we will have the results as to who emerges as the best shooter," he said.