The First International Trap Grand Prix for Disabled Shooters

ShootClay is indebted to Julie Sperling for her excellent report from this event – full gallery of photos is at the end of the post…

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Alec Sperling

Held at Tiro a Volo Cascata delle Marmore, Acquasparta, Italy 2^nd to 4^th September.  FITAV arranged the whole competition all the competitors had to do was attend a functional classification (to classify your disability by IPC rules) and get to Rome Fiumicino airport.  FITAV arranged transport to and from the airport and shooting ground in minibuses and a coach (sponsored for the event) all suitable for wheelchair users and other disabilities.  FITAV paid for the accommodation, meals and the event.  The only outlay by International competitors was the flight and €30 for clays during the competition. 

There were competitors from Australia, Brazil, Finland, Great Britain, New Zealand, Spain and of course Italy (as also being held at the same time was the 4^th Italian Disabled Shooters competition), unfortunately an Indian competitor was unable to make it at the last minute due to passport restrictions.  In all over 40 disabled competitors of which five members of The Disabled Shooters Group (DSG) attended,  see our website www.disabledsg.co.uk .

The functional classification did disappoint a few shooters, as their disability was not severe enough to classify under the strict rulings.  The competition was split into two classes standing and sitting, and each class having two sub-classes, standing – shooting one armed (SH1A) or fully supported (SH1B), and sitting, those who cannot stand or have legions to T1 to T9 (SH2A) or cannot stand, double amputee or have legions T10 to L5 (SH2B) – this is the basic breakdown of classification not in its entirety.

As FITAV and the Italian Government are very supportive of their disabled clay shooters (especially as shooting is probably the third sporting activity in Italy), grants are easily accessed, the ground had had a complete overhaul, new paths to all the layouts to make the whole ground fully accessible to the disabled, even the road into the ground approx a mile of winding up and down hill had been resurfaced.   The clubhouse had also been made fully accessible and with disabled toilets nothing had been too much trouble.  They even arranged for superb weather with the temperature hitting 35° everyday.

The competition of Olympic Trap ran to ISSF rules was 75 targets on Saturday and 50 on Sunday with a flash final for the standing and sitting competitors (top 6 scores over both categories).  Unfortunately there were no GB standing competitors but out of the five sitting competitors one Laugharne Jones made the flash final.  Laugharne scored 17 in his first ever International competition let alone the flash final, so he did very well to keep his nerve but was only a target behind to get 6^th place.

This was an excellent event and hope that we can reciprocate this next year, if we can do it half as well it would be a success.

Results from Acquasparta, Italy