Hi All,

I just got back from a great weekend of shooting in the Czech Republic - the 2002 Czech Euro Open. I must admit, I too had second thoughts about going to this match this year, as the news about sever flooding in that area was really worrying. Cesky Krumlov, in the South of Czech was an area hit badly by the flooding, and reaching there by car seemed to be in doubt. But, eventually we decided to go, putting our trust in the fact that "things always look worse than they are on CNN". This rule proved to be right again, and we arrived there by car without so much as a 5 minute delay, in record time too.

But due to the weather and flooding reports, many of the registered shooters decided not to come. There were over 500 shooters registered, and only 280 shot the match this year. For us, the shooters there, this was even better, as it made the squads smaller, and the days shorter. The ironic thing was, that after all the worry, we had the best weather at this match I can remember. In the past, it had been either too hot, or too wet, but this year was perfect. Other than the mud that is. It had been raining heavily the week before the match, and some of the stages were shot ankle deep in mud. A tricky business, as I, none too gracefully, demonstrate in the attached clip appropriately entitled "slip in the mud".

but other than the mud, the stages were good. Some the props seem to have had better days, and I would say it's time the organizers spent some money on the stage construction, but that aside, the stages were interesting, fun to shoot, and certainly offered a challenge to the competitors.

We had a great squad, with 5 other shooters from Israel, 2 Dutch shooters and 2 Canadians, Bob and Leon, who came all the way over for this match. We had a fun weekend together.

I shot a good match, but not error free. I was very happy with my shooting on 21 of the 24 stages, and the errors I did make, while they cost me plenty of points, are not something I am too worried about. I know what the mistakes were, and have already corrected them. On my good 21 stages, I dropped an average on less than 3 points per stage, which was my goal.

In the end of the 3 day match, I had shot well enough to win this match, the biggest of the year in Europe. Czech champion Martin Kamenicek came in a close second, with Belgium's Frank Witters, the European Bronze Medallist, coming in 3rd with 90%. The top 8 were:

  1 100.00 1778.0279  517    Saul Kirsch                                   
  2  99.40 1767.3099   11      Martin Kamenicek                        
  3  90.75 1613.5556  138     Frank Witters                                 
  4  88.14 1567.1549    9       Miroslav Havlicek                           
  5  81.03 1440.7036  177     Rein Heinze                                     
  6  80.97 1439.7459  337     Manfred Segessenmann                            
  7  79.69 1416.9245   10      Miroslav Kamenicek                         
  8  78.36 1393.3409  246     Hemi Menachem               

As an added bonus to the weekend's success, our Israeli Open team at this match, consisting of Hemi Menachem, Dotan Tobias, Dudi Ram and myself, finished 2nd in the match, being beaten only by the Czech national team.

As always I have my sponsors to thank for this opportunity:

The Makoff-Reifman Foundation

Drummen Custom Guns

I leave tomorrow for the USA, to compete in the US Open Nationals in Bend Oregon, my last match before the world shoot. This will be my vesy first time shooting the US Nationals... I will report!

Very best regards,