Dear Friends,
I recently returned to Holland from SA, from the XIII World Championships, the highlight of the IPSC shooting season. Wow - what a match this was! The biggest ever world shoot, with over 900 (!!) shooters from 49 countries. 35 stages requiring over 600 (!!) rounds to complete. A real shooting "Bonanza" the South African's put on. What a thrill for all involved.
I've worked hard, these past two years in particular, in preparation for this match. With the help of my sponsors, and the support of my family and friends I was able to participate in dozens of matches around the world, all geared to prepare me for this one match. And what a match it was.

Since this was the World championships, I think it appropriate to start this report with the results: My best efforts were good enough to place me 5th in the world! World Champion Eric Grauffel of France retained his title with another impressive win. the top 16 were:

 1 100.00 2982.9601  598 Eric Grauffel             OPN                    FFT

  2  96.23 2870.5695  826 Todd Jarrett              OPN                   USA

  3  96.23 2870.5689  276 Brodie McIntosh        OPN                  AUS

  4  94.43 2816.7656  825 Jerry Barnhart           OPN                  USA

  5  94.00 2804.0491  538 Saul Kirsch                                   ISR

  6  93.27 2782.0869  847 Simon "JJ" Racaza                                USA

  7  92.67 2764.3787  857 JoJo Vidanes                                        USA

  8  90.95 2712.8931  828 Travis Tomasie            OPN                 USA

  9  89.83 2679.4890  277 Errol Thomas              OPN                 AUS

10  89.73 2676.6975  827 Maxient Michel Jnr      OPN                 USA

While I can't be too disappointed with a 5th in the world finish, I must admit I had hoped for a top 3 slot. I feel that I was prepared well enough to make it into the top 3, but, alas, I did not have an error free match, and when shooting against ALL the best shooters in the world, mistakes will cost you points - and places in the overall ranking. I am proud to be up there amongst the very best shooters in our sport - and will keep my eye on a top 3 finish for next time!

The 35 stages of the world shoot are shot over 5 consecutive days, 7 stages per day. All the match officials shoot the Prematch -which is shot during the 4 days before the main match begins, so in total, this event goes on for almost 2 weeks. No small feat of organization by any means - this event takes months in the planning.

I was squaded on squad 1, the Open super-squad of the match: almost all the top Open guns were on this squad, as it comprised of the top 4 open teams: the USA, Australia, France and SA. Plus a couple of extras, like myself, shooting for Israel as an individual. On this squad were the greatest shooters in our sport: the Frenchman Eric Grauffel, the Americans Todd Jarrett, Jerry Barnhart, Max Michel and Travis Tomassie.The Australians, Errol Thomas and Brodie Mcintosh, and of course the hosting team from SA, with starts such as Eddi Smith, Elardus de Lang, Pierre Wrogemann and Hubert Montgomery. I have never before shot on such a squad. every last shooter - one of the best in our sport. To make things even more interesting, we had no less than three (!) individual score sheets being kept and updated real-time on our squad, Jerry's wife, Merelane, and John, the Australian team captain, where keeping computerized scores with the help of the fantastic new score system by Peter Cunningham, and Eric's Dad, Gigi, was doing the scores on paper, as always. This meant the going into each stages we all knew precisely where each one of us was in the standing. Who was leading and by how much. It certainly made an intense squad even more exciting...

The stages were fun and challenging. a lot of fast shooting, precise positions - and then some 50 meter targets thrown in the mix as well. Lots of sliders, movers and drop out targets which made only one pass, one chance to pick up the "bonus points" on them.. Not on this squad... there was nothing "bonus" about those drop out targets.. You had to put 2 "A's" on them, or you would be "dropping out" of the race... In all I have to say the stage design and construction were of the very best I have seen. Ever.

Stage 7, our last of day 1, had the shooter move backwards and then forward engaging paper and steel on the move. To make things more complicated, the shooter had to take a computer disk with him from the start of the stage, all the way to the end. Most competitors, myself included, opted to hold the disk between our teeth as we ran through the stage. The match staff came ready for this, and had disinfectant on hand, to clean each disk between each competitor.... I had a good solid run, shooting good points in 12:41sec, one of the best times of the stage.

On stage 12, the shooter had to retrieve his gun from a box on the table top, rack the slide and engage 4 targets, which were at about 5 meters, with No-shoot targets mixed between then, covering them partially. What seems simple, became a match of skill and nerve - and one stray shot, which would miss the brown paper, and hit the N/S would cost a competitor 25 match point (15 for the mike and 10 for the NS). You only have to look at the overall points to see that 25 points would have changed things. So, as you can imagine, we were all very careful shooting that string -although, you have to fast as well to remain competitive. I had the fastest time on that stage, with an 8:24 down 3 points. But stage win went to Jerry Barnhart with an 8:52 full score.

The shoot-off was the best I've seen: They had 2 of the local RO's, great announcers, run the show. They did it as if they were commentating on a prize fight - giving their opinions of the each pair of shooters, going back and forth. They kept it up for all the 6 hours of the shoot-offs, and did a great job! Entertaining the crowd no end.
I had a good performance in the top 8 Open shoot offs: I beat Brodie Mcintosh in my first round. Then I  beat Jerry Barnhart in the second, and met with World champion Eric Grauffel in the final round, for a best of 5 shoot-off finals. The finals went the distance, 5 runs. I took the first, he took the next 2, I won the forth, and we were tied 2 all for the final run. With over a 1000 spectators, it was a tense shoot-off. One extra shot in the final run cost me the shoot-off, with Eric winning by a hair. But, it was a great performance by both of us - and the crowd loved it and showed much appreciation to us both. I was especially pleased to have done so well, representing my sponsors and country in front of such a big crowd. It was also great to have my Dad, Sam, there to watch me too. Thanks for coming Dad!

After a wonderful match, the prize ceremony was a real disappointment. The organizes decided to give medals to all stage winners in all divisions - and that took hours. All that before starting to give the top 3 awards to the match winners. Also, they called up top 15 in each division to get a medal. While it was nice to be recognized, and certainly the top 15 deserved the honor - all this made the ceremony WAY too long. At midnight (!) they still had not given out the final match winner award, or the teams event. By the time those were handed out, most people had gone home. To bad, a poor ending to a really fabulous match.  

Very best regards,

Saul Kirsch