European Championships, Medway, GBR
01.08.2011
I am pleased to send you my report about laser shooting at Medway European Championships. The report covers technical matters, the practical side and weapon test.
Technical matters:
- The range was prepared like in Greenwich. It contained 38 targets from IQ and 38 lights with repeaters from Navi street. Result system was provided by Cardsys. No power back up was provided by LOC. No breakdown happened.
Practical side:
The LOC decide to claim all the pistols, do a weapon check, offer a new battery, seal the boxes and the athletes have to sign a paper. Direct before the pairing the LOC deliver the sealed boxes to the range. The first semifinal the athletes had to pair their pistols alone. From the second semifinal men to the relay men on Monday we paired the pistols in front of the athletes. We checked the mode paired and made sure that every range worked. The last change we did was to increase the power. So we switch the last red light to green or purple.
First semifinal men we had three protest: 1. Kinderis LIT, 2. Weale GBR, 3. Thomas AUT.
During the third shooting in competition No 1 complained after 3 green lights, that the lights didn´t blink. He had the chance to change to R1 but he decided to go on with shooting. What we saw was the pistol of No 1 was in a terrible condition. The aiming function of bead sights was not fixed so it could be that it moves when he touched the table strong like he did. We showed that TD, Georgina Harland, Iris and the responsible coach. Furthermore there were rust all over the pistol. It was not the first time I saw pistols which were in a very bad condition, rusty, no oil, technical malfunction of trigger and so on.
No 2 and No 3 complained that their target didn´t register the valid shots. They always blink red. During pairing, 20 minutes warm up and the first two rounds of shooting there were no problem. After competition No 2 test his pistol himself, 5 shot five green.
Later on because the TD wants to check all three pistols again, shoot about 120 shoots. There were no malfunction during that test.From second semifinal men to men final no more problem. On Sunday we had a pistol breakdown from A. Prokopenkow BLR. In second round the pistol doesn´t release a shoot.
In relay the range were prepare that every athlete had his own range. In women relay we had two problems, No1 Gyenesei didn´t blink the lights but she went on with shooting and hit five green. * No 2 Gubaydullina Rus had no green in second round! After competition the weapon and target were checked without problem. The responsible shooting judge saw during that she didn´t hit the black zone always shoots in the white zone. She was able to saw every shoot.No 3 Holyst FRA men relay one problem with pistol. In his second round the pistol had a breakdown. The system includes a function for dry fire. Therefore you have to tight a bolt. If you tight it to strong the piazzo (release mechanism for shoot) under that bolt get destroyed. Exactly that happened. IQ opened the pistol and the cable was broken.
- The system is programmed in that way if there is a problem with the lights – they doesn´t blink - you can go on with shooting because if you hit the black zone the shoot will be registered in every situation. The data system receive all shoots. The data protocol worked faultlessly. On the range there were no problems. We had again reduced air power, some pistols worked without any noise.
Weapon test:
- As I wrote above, the LOC had a lot of work but it was perfect organized and all tests of our rules were done.
Conclusion:
- The system worked, but it will be absolutely not possible to check during a competition if we have a pistol breakdown. The36 shooting judges were in a fantastic shape, the know the rules, register every incident, and they prepare a report for each range.