THE BEST WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP EVER
USA Team Number Three In Medal Count
USA Juniors are Outstanding

It really was the best ever. The 50th World Shooting Championship that took place in Munich, Germany from 30 July through 10 August was expected to be the biggest and best world championship in the history of shooting. From its grand opening in Munich’s main square in front of its historic city hall to the biggest participation numbers ever for a World Championship to its 107 competition events that produced 27 World Records, it met or exceeded every expectation.

The pageantry of the World Championship Opening Ceremony was memorable and exceptional. Here, the flag of the oldest shooting club in Munich, the Hauptschützengesellschaft München that was founded in 1406, passes the review stand.

The USA Shooting Team’s performance also met pre-championship expectations. The team was third in medal count behind China and Russia. USA shooters set three World Records and won five Olympic quotas. In an outcome that bodes well for the future, USA juniors won 14 of the 24 total medals won by Americans.

The World Championship Opening Ceremony in Munich’s Marienplatz featured an impressive demonstration of centuries old sport shooting traditions of Munich and Bavaria. The biggest shooting club in Munich was founded in 1406 and its flag followed the flag of the Bavarian state shooting federation in the opening parade. The ceremony was also a convincing demonstration of the high respect that the German Shooting Federation’s 1.5 million members and 15,000 shooting clubs enjoy. Both the Minister President of Bavaria and the Mayor of Munich spoke at the opening. The high status that the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) enjoys within the Olympic sports family was affirmed by the presence of IOC President Dr. Jacque Rogge and IOC Vice President Dr. Thomas Bach. Both spoke at the opening ceremony. IOC President Rogge officially opened the World Championship.

The final entry totals did indeed confirm that this was the largest ISSF championship ever. 2,250 athletes from 103 different nations made 3,614 starts in 54 different events in four disciplines, rifle, pistol, shotgun and running target. The largest previous World Championship was four years ago in Zagreb, Croatia when 1,932 athletes participated. 1,490 of those athletes competed in 30 different senior or open events while 763 juniors, age 20 or under, competed in 24 junior events. Every event awarded both individual and team gold, silver and bronze medals.
 

Bavarian traditions and clothing were a key part of every award ceremony.

In addition to the impressive opening ceremony, there were many features of the organization brought together by the cooperative work of the German Shooting Federation and the Bavarian Shooting Sports Federation that merit special praise. The range and operations staffs were, as always, well trained and knowledgeable. The facilities were excellent and even such challenging operations as transportation worked well. The award ceremonies, in particular, were exceptional. A large awards tribune was set up in the main plaza of the range and a staff of 20 conducted each ceremony on time, with dignity and precision. The award and flag bearers were dressed in traditional Bavarian clothing of 200 years ago.

The central focus of any Championship like this is, of course, the shooters and their performances. Results were impressive with 27 individual and team scores setting or equaling world records. Qualifying scores for the Olympic events were uniformly high. It took 1172 to make the 50m 3x40 rifle men’s final, 598 in 50m prone rifle, 596 in men’s air rifle, 397 in women’s air rifle, 563 in free pistol, 144 in double trap and 583 in women’s 25m pistol.
 

42-year-old Sergei Martynov of Belarus was the only 2006 World Champion to repeat. Martynov won the 50m prone rifle event the old fashioned way. He uses an old model Anschütz rifle with a wooden stock, no barrel extension, a web sling and late 1980s Russian Olymp ammunition.

USA Shooters established three of the 27 World Records set in Munich. Josh Richmond, a soldier at the Army Marksmanship Unit shot a 196 in Double Trap, highlighted by 50 straight in his last qualification round followed by 50 straight in the final. This equaled the Final World Record held by HU Binuan of China. HU finished third in Munich. The other two USA World Records were set by two impressive women’s three-position rifle teams. Jamie Beyerle (592), Amy Sowash (585) and Sandra Fong (580) totaled 1758 to eclipse a record previously set by China in 2002. USA junior women Amada Furrer (586), Sarah Sherer (582) and Sarah Beard (579) posted a 1747 to better a 1736 record set by a Slovakia team in 2001.

69 Olympic quotas were awarded in Munich, the first quotas for the 2012 Games in London. The USA Shooting Team placed 12 shooters in finals for Olympic events where between two and six quotas were being awarded. Five of those shooters, Josh Richmond (double trap), Kim Rhode (skeet), Matt Emmons (50m prone rifle), Vincent Hancock (skeet) and Jamie Beyerle (50m 3x20) earned quotas that will allow USA Shooting to enter qualified athletes in the London Olympics.

Tickets were sold for all final round events and every one was sold out. Here ticketed spectators queue up to get the best seats for the next final.

The distribution of medals in the World Championship shows both the dominance of China and Russia and how successful shooting has become in being a true world sport where many countries have strong shooting programs that produce athletes who can win medals. China was the overall leader in medal count with 52 medals to Russia’s 46. Russia, however, won the Nasser Trophy that is awarded at the Closing Ceremony to the country with the most individual gold medals. The USA finished third in the medal count with 24 medals, ahead of a group of strong shooting countries that included Italy, Ukraine, Korea and Germany. Considering the disparity in resources that are available to Chinese and Russian shooters compared with other nations, the USA Team did well. 34 different countries from all five continents took home medals from Munich.
 

One of the new shooting heroines who emerged during the 50th World Championship was China’s Yl Siling. In the women’s air rifle event, she fired a perfect 400 in the qualification round and followed that with 10 more 10s in the final that scored 105.6. This erased a celebrated World Record that has been held successively by DU Li, CHN, Katarina Emmons, CZE and Sonja Pfeilschifter, GER.

The list of new individual World Champions represented, in many ways, a changing of the guard. Almost all of the big names from the last few Olympics and World Championships were replaced by new champions. The only 2006 World Champion to repeat was Sergei Martynov of Belarus who once again won the men’s 50m prone rifle event. Most 2006 World Champions who returned finished far down in the pack. Abinav Bindra, India, was 25th in men’s air rifle. Pang Wei, China, finished 19th in men’s air pistol. Liubov Galkina, Russia, placed 7th in 50m 3x20 women’s rifle. Susan Nattrass, Canada, finished 47th in women’s trap. Artem Khadjibekhov, Russia, was 11th in 50m 3x40 men’s rifle. Vitaly Fokeev, Russia, was 9th in men’s double trap.

Replacing them were a host of new names like Niccolo Campriani, a U. S. college student from Italy, who won men’s air rifle; Tomoyuki Matsuda, Japan, in men’s air pistol; Barbara Lechner, Germany, in 50m 3x20 women’s rifle; Zusana Stefececekova, Slovakia, in women’s trap; Peter Sidi, Hungary, in 50m 3x40 rifle and Josh Richmond, USA, in men’s double trap and Yl Siling, China, in women’s air rifle. Multiple medal winners were nearly as rare as repeat champions. Except for the running target events where entry numbers were very low, the only double medalists were Zoran Arunovic of Serbia who won gold and silver medals in women’s pistol, Charlotte Jakobsen, Denmark, who won two silvers in women’s 300m rifle; Julio Almeida, Brazil, who won a silver and bronze in standard and center-fire pistol; Norway’s Vebjorn Berg who won a silver and two bronze medals in men’s 300 m rifle and France’s Josselin Henry who won gold and bronze medals in the 300m events.

If individual stars were to be declared, the most likely candidates would be Japan’s Tomoyuki Matsuda and Hungary’s Peter Sidi. Matsuda won both the 50m and 10m men’s pistol World Championships. Sidi won the 50 meter 3x40 men’s rifle event, placed second in men’s air rifle and fourth in 50m men’s prone rifle.

Kim Rhode, USA, won her first individual World Championship gold medal to go with her two Olympic golds. Rhode scored 72 in the qualification round and 25 in the final to win.

Richmond was one of only two individual World Champions from the USA. The other was veteran Kim Rhode, who won women’s skeet by breaking 25 straight in the final to protect a one-target lead over China’s Wei Ning. USA teams won World Team Championships in women’s 50m 3x20 rifle, men’s double trap, women’s skeet and men’s 50m prone rifle.

Matt Emmons, the USA’s best male rifle shooter, won a bronze medal and an Olympic quota in the 50m men’s prone event, but his incredible string of misfortunes in major championships continued. He needed a 9.0 on his last shot to win a bronze medal in men’s air rifle, but ended with an 8.4. He was shooting exceptionally well in the 50m three-position event where he led all shooters with an 1184 in the team/elimination event. But then, in the qualification round, a set-off miss on his first record shot kneeling cost him ten points and a place in the final.
 

USA’s Jon McGrath won the World Junior Skeet Championship with a 123 score.

One of the real bright spots for the USA team were the performances of America’s junior shooters. Jon McGrath shot an outstanding 123 x 125 to win the junior men’s skeet title. Miranda Wilder, won the junior women’s trap championship and Sharon Barzani won the junior women’s 50m prone rifle event. USA juniors also won team championships in women’s 50m 3x20 rifle and junior women’s skeet.

When the 50th World Shooting Championship was closed on the 10th of August, the shooting world recognized that it had celebrated its finest hour. The next bit World Shooting Championship will be staged in Granada, Spain in 2014. The bar for a great World Championship has been set very high.

A summary of USA Shooting Team results at the World Championship is posted at http://www.odcmp.org/0910/Summary.pdf. 

Results and news reports from the World Championship are posted on the ISSF website at http://www.issf-sports.org/calendar/championship.ashx?cshipid=909.

Peter Sidi, a 32-year-old rifle shooter from Hungary, won the men’s 50m 3x40 event, placed second in men’s air rifle and fourth in men’s 50m prone rifle to become one of the most successful shooters in the 50th World Championship.

Tomoyuki Matsuda, a police officer from Yokohama, Japan, was the only double gold medal winner in World Championship rifle and pistol events. Matsuda won both the men’s free pistol and air pistol events.

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