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Hi All,

After a long drive, I returned back to Holland yesterday from the French Open National championships, held this year at Chavel-Blanc in the South of France. The 1,100km drive each way was well worth it since, as expected, this was one of the very best matches of the year.

Probably 6-7 of the top 10 shooters in Europe today are French, so the French Open offers some of the highest level shooting in Europe. Almost like the European championships. That, and the fact that the French always build very challenging and interesting free style matches, combined to make this weekend a real treat. Seems like the club at Chavel -Blanc are becoming dominant in France, as this is their second or third major match held there this year, and they keep on getting better and better. The construction of the stages, and target placement made for many options and solutions to each stage. And that is what makes a stage design a success, in my view anyway.

Squad one started as always on stage 1 - a 28 round Jungle run, down a path we have become all to familiar with in Chavel Blanc. Except this time a surprised awaited us, in the shape of massive swinging bridge the shooter had to move over, while engaging 3 targets. The bridge must have been 8m long, and it was SWINGING.

I had the fastest time on that stage, beating the rest of the field by a full second or more. But, dropping too many points on that stage prevented me from pulling ahead early. I really focused on my points from there on, and had only 1 "D" for the rest of the 23 stages.

Another new feature in this match were 4 "classifier" stages for the new International ranking system. These 4 stages are carefully constructed to a precise chart, so that they can be built in other matches too. Most of these stages call for a mandatory reload - something us Open shooters in Europe, with our 29 round magazines tend to forget to practice... (see stage 4 for one of the classifiers).

Even the simplest stage becomes a challenge when those pesky No-shoot targets are everywhere...Check out stage 15. This was a little simply 6 rounds stage, worth only 30 points. But, with the NS behind each steel target -one extra shot fired would cost you dearly. And with the competition running as close as it was at that time, all three of the top shooters, Eric, Eddi and myself,  had to be very very careful. I won that stage with a clean run of 2.53 seconds.

Another interesting stage was 20, a weak hand running stage! I've never ever seen that done before. Thankfully the targets were not too far from us, as we ran down the lane carrying a 4kg ammo box in our strong hand. but if you've never tried this before, it's worth doing. not at all easy (see stage 20 clip)

In the end, Eric would not be beaten on his home court, he won another, and I fished 2nd, with 96.2%. Eddi Testa who shot a great match, finished 3rd with 94.5%. We will meet up to play again next weekend, at the Czech Euro Open, The last major match of the year in Europe. After that, for me, it's off to the US Nationals, and final preparations for the World shoot, which is just around the corner.

As always I have my sponsors to thank for making this dream possible for me:

I will report from Czech!

Yours,

Saul Kirsch