From 3rd till 10th August World championship in rifle shooting according to IPSC rules took place in Swedish Karlskoge. It was only a second season of this type championship. There were 636 shooters from 32 countries of the world. Slovakia was represented by a mini team of 8 shooters. Organizers prepared 30 shooting stages for the competitors and to accomplish them they needed around 500 bullets to shoot. The competition took place in the second biggest Swedish army shooting range. The mentioned stages were located approximately on 20 kilometres of forest roads and Swedish nature. Even though a vehicle was needed to move from one stageto another it didn’ t cause any problems. All participants agreed that this world championship was a level harder than the one in Mosque 3 years ago. why was it so hard? definitely because of the positions we had to shoot from. It was impossible even to train such a positions. For interest I will list some of them.On one of the stages the Swedish cut down a tree with a diameter 45-50 cm and around 50 cm above the ground and from this stump we had to shoot. The shooter wasn’t able to stand in his ideal (trained) shooting position cause he had to have his legs together. But even this wasn’t the hardest… From this stump you had to shoot down the hill into the valley where about 60 metres far where five redacted paper mini targets and three of them were covered with penalty targets. To make it even more “easy” in front of this stump was a natural hole which enabled the use of long bipodsand you had to shoot only with hands. On the other stage you had to shoot two mini targets on a relatively short distance but these targets were on withdrawable arm and you had to shoot high under 70-75 degrees angle. We stood there in silent amazement and were thinking if the Swedish had to redirect the air traffic above the shooting range?Everyone knows how far can the bullet from 223 rem shot under such an angle get. And just for interest there were some shooters with 308 win 🙂Or on the other stage you had to shoot 2 metal targets only from a tiny around 35 cm high stump and a diameter around 18 – 20 cm (or by hand). And a stage continued with 6 paper targets at 250 metres which you could shoot just from a narrow around 20 cm wide hole and you could only lean your rifle against a boulder what was possible only in sitting position. Therefore it was maximally uncomfortable position from which I was shooting for the first time in my life.
I can say about one of the stages that it was irregular cause the results didn’t depend on the shooters shooting ability but on his weight. The shooter stood on a platform which was in the air attached by chains. After the sound signal the shooter had to lean on one side to uncover the targets what meant that the platform started to move. So if the shooter was 100 kg or more the platform stabilized quicker but shooters under 100 kg were swinging there till the very end.Apart from the problem-free organization a great recognition goes to the organizers even for that they managed to set up 30 shooting stages from which not even one was effortless – not one the man could say it was easy peasy.For me personally straight from beginning the shooting went very well and I was in total psychical comfort. Before the last day I was 195 points ahead from the last year champion in my category Jojo Vidanes from America. Everyone who is competing in shooting knows it is a huge point gap. The last day shooting was only with 100 bullets and there was just 500 points in the game. My son was well aware of it too so before the last day he send me a message saying ” Dad the only one who can take the title from you now are the referees”. And he was absolutely right. Because with a rifle just a small thing can get you disqualified. There were a lot of disqualified shooters in this championship too. So I was aware of it before the last day and I told myself that I won’t risk it and go safe. To be honest it is easy to say but hard to accomplish. How many times the man goes to the shooting range with a thought – If I won’t screw this up will be a world Champion. So anyway a managed the last day and even was ahead before others in final by 225 points which means by 11%. The point gap between the 2nd and the 3rd place was only 16 points.I think that even in the final shoot off which is really just a shooting exhibition if the best 8 shooters in the division and category I left a good impression cause I lost just in the finals 2:1 against Maskim Shkodom from Russia. By the way the shoot off took place in Karlskoge park which is not a shooting range. Swedish just created one there so a lot of people can come and see so it was a real exhibition.Slovak Republic was 8th in the finals. Someone could say it is much worse than in Mosque where it was 4th. But I disagree. In Mosque some of the best shooters and national teams didn’t come because it was in Rusia. Than we have to responsibly admit that the level of shooting with a rifle during those 3 years went rapidly up. For personal reasons our team was missing a great shooter Rasto Korba who we wasn’t able to replace with anyone. About the other members of the team Michal Myšiak proved that he still belongs to the world class however even he had a hard beginning in this championship. His brother Štefan Myšiak from my perspective made a huge progress according to that he shoots from the rifle just for two years! And if he wouldn’t have to pay a penalty for the novice mistake the last day Slovakia could have been before Austria, which ended on the 7th place by 177 points ahead of us. And a full cup of bitterness had to drink Martin Čemsák, whose vortex messed up and so during the shooting the reticule was moving slowly. Therefore after each area he finished he went to the zero point area to zero point his rifle so he could at least manage the first stages the next day. Martin shot 21 miss ( what was 315 points less but in reality the loss was even bigger) Because after he knew that his rifle is not shooting properly he was shooting on the distance targets even 5 times more and so he was losing time.) Anyway what is really important we didn’t drop out from the world top 10 and so the next championship we will be starting as the 8th team and we will be shooting the same areas as the best teams.And I want to mention our great ( However for the shooter the worse position) 4th place which belongs to Ing. Ján Polák. He was missing only 68 points in semi auto standard division in senior category to have a bronze medal.The only big negativity of this world championship was that we couldn’t measure the real distance of the targets. This absurdity shocked many of the top shooters including me. The referees understood the rule that the shooter can’t have anything in their hands during the breefing and this included the telemeter into it too. Therefore we were left just with the information from the referees during the breefing. But when he said that the targets are from 40 – 350 m far it was like he didn’t say anything at all. Shooters are mainly interested to know the distance between the shortest and the longest distance. So he can adjust his scope or make a correction during the transfer. Until now during every competition we could always measure the distance straight in the shooting stage and the only rule was not to measure it from the shooting position. So for this we were many times climbing on the trees so we can measure it. So many times it didn’t even help because the start stage was somewhere down and after the sound signal we had to run on the horizon or somewhere behind a bend where we really couldn’t measure the distance and we were left just with our estimation. I consider this as a big minus because the shooter is preparing more than a year for the world championship in shooting and not for world championship in estimating the distances. I hope this rule will be changed in the upcoming general assembly in Serbia on European championship in pistol shooting.At the end I would like to thank people who helped me to achieve the title master of the world in rifle shooting. First I would like say thanks to the Vila Wine Rača company and mainly Ing. Ján Krampl who sponsored my preparations on the world championship as well as the expanses there. Next thanks goes to MUDr. Andrej Vondrák for always helping me to find necessary needed equipment for the IPSC rifle. Big thanks belongs to Mr. Homér who prepares my shooting – dioptricglasses in Nitra optic centre. Today I wouldn’t be able to shoot without dioptric glasses. Thanks to all men from sport shooting club BA012 in Pezinok where I am a member too. In this club shooting range I am training and I want to thank them for leniency and understanding and letting me to train so much there what is necessary for accomplishing quality results. Thanks goes Czech Richard Maško ( he knows whats for) As well as to Jožko Didi who lent me his large capacity magazine right before I was leaving for the world championship because my magpulstopped working properly. And my biggest thanks goes to my wife and my little son who are tolerating my absences during the trainings as well as separation during the competitions. I want to thank them for the family comfort they create for me without which I wouldn’t be able to be in the top shooting.
Mgr. Ernest Nagy
