Hi All,
The Dutch Open was held this past weekend in two shooting ranges in the center of Holland. As always, this match attracted most of the top shooters in Europe, with the exception of the French shooters, who after 3 weeks of back to back French matches, seemed to have decided to give this one a miss. Their loss, as this match was, as has become a tradition in the Dutch Open, a good, well run and interesting competition.
Even without the most of the French shooters, the match still had many top competitors, with all the best German, Belgium and Dutch shooters present, plus many others from other countries, and even a couple from Israel...
This year, the 12 stage match was shoot in 1 day, with the competitors having the choice between shooting either on Saturday or Sunday. Since many of the stages were shot as "hot range" stages, 2 stages back to back, the 12 stage day was not as long as you might expect, with the match ending on time, around 5 pm Sunday afternoon. The stages were excellent, even though the indoor ranges, and the need to fit 2 stages on each bay forced some stages to be smaller than what most would like. Even so, the level of the stages was excellent, with a lot of thought going into creating some interesting and challenging stages.
Of particular interest was one of the bigger stages, shot in the only outdoor range used. this 32 round stage had the shooters running in ankle deep sand between about 8 shooting positions and windows, engaging targets and poppers. The layout of the shooting ports allowed for some options to be considered, and various solutions were used, the common to all was heavy breathing and a pounding pulse after the long run in the deeeeeeep sand...
The sand run stage did not go well for me, but I shot well on 10 of the 12 stages and won the match with a comfortable 6% margin over Belgium champion Frank Witters. 3rd and 4th positions were won by the Germans Timo, and Christian wilda. The top Dutch competitor was BUL shooter Marcel Van Laar, who finished 5th.
At present I am in South Africa again for the 3rd round of the Nationals, which will be shot this weekend in Pietersburg once more. This promises to be a challenging and interesting match. World champion Eric Grauffel is here for this one, as is the USPSA President Mike Voight. I will report!
Take care all,
Shoot fast - and all A's!
DvC
Saul Kirsch
