European Championship 2004, Tabor in Czech

We are finally on our way to Prague, Czech for the European Championship 2004. The match is held in a small town called Tabor 2 hours drive south of Prague. 28 stages, 473 rounds, 5 days of shooting, over 800 competitors from all over Europe.

If time,work load and internett access permits I will try to write a small reports every day. We started off nicely this morning in Oslo. After our scare at Oslo Airport last time(Czech Nationals), we were determed to be there well in time for our flight to Prague, via Copenhagen. First complication emerged after 5 minutes, Frank had left his flight tickets at home, some 50 minutes detour..... after a few minutes with tormenting Frank, I tried to call SAS Customerservice, to check if "no ticket Frank" was in trouble, they where closed so we had to take a gamble and fix this at the airport.

Gun export papers was a breeze for those of us having European Gun Passport, no papers needed. We rushed to the SAS counter and started explaining, no hassle... printing a new ticket was not a problem if you could land 60€ on the desk..hehe so we did.

All the bags was put through special luggage and thingfs went smoothley. When asked about the weight limit on ammo everybody answered "just under 5 kg" Frank was of course the only one not passing the x-ray point. After two examinations, he had to take his boots off for x-ray, some small stripes of metall caused some eyebrowse rising, but is went okay.

Finally a cold beer (and peanuts for Frank) in the nearest bar, we where well ahead of departure time, so there was no surprise when the message came over the speaker that the flight was delayed 30 minutes.

We had some 20 minutes between our flight connection in Copenhagen so that was not a problem, we where more worried that our luggage would not make the flight. Next surprise was the plane to Prague, a small  propeller plane where our ride. The thugs goes in the back, and while looking out of the windows we saw a trucker comming with some bags, and we thougt, yes this is going our way....

Nope...after starring on the trolley, we discovered that all bags with ammo was there, but the bags with guns where not in sights... splendid. I asked the stewardess onboard if she could do some checking for us... is the bags stopped in an x-ray, will/can they be sent with next flight.. and more important when is the next flight.... The worries now is that the bags with the guns will not be sent, since the guns owner is not on the plane. Meanwhile we are trying to relax on the prop plane... not an easy task, it is wobbling so much I can hardly type correctly on my keyboard..The captiain is just announcing turbulence ahead please fasten your seatbelts... OKIDOKI...

Surprisingly almost every bag was on the conveyor belt when we arrived. Only Lars and Thomas J, did not get their bag with the guns. This was also the last SAS flight for today so they will have to travel back to Prague tomorrow and hopefully pick it up tomorrow.

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Lazy Sunday started off with a surprise when we where out for a late breakfast. When we came up to the town square where our cars where parked, the whole place was cleared. The police where setting up grids and a towcar was busy towing cars. It took us a few moments to realize that our car was not here anymore. We grabbed the nearest police man and started sorting out this. It seems like there was a no parking zone over the whole town square because of the opening ceremony today. We had not seen this sign since we have driven against a one way sign, so we where close to getting one fine for wrong parking, one fine for negelcting one way sign ( Steinar explained this very carefully to the police man) and a fee for beeing towed. It ended reasonably with only the towing fee of 800kc.

The only thing on the program was the opening ceremony in the Townsquare. Frank distributed the new Norway short to everybody so we dressed up and ready. All the competitors lined up and marched into the townsquare. Czech RD and Match director said a few words, so did Nick A. Then they had a demonstration of anicient guns and rifles related to Czech history. The guns made quite a loud sound, but nothing compared with the canon fired at the end. Several car alarms went off simultaneous.

The rest of the day has been quiet and relaxed. The action starts tomorrow. 5-6 stages each day and we are shooting halv days, so some of us are in the box at 0800, the rest starts 13:30 in the afternoon. Do not know if this will go as planned, we'll see tomorrow.....

Monday ended up as a long day. We are shooting 1/2 day schedule, and most of us where set to start 13:30. That was a strange feeling waking up around 08:00 (exept Hansi 05:00) having breakfast and just no hurry on a match day... Anyway we where on the range 1-2 hours before we should start so we could have a look. Nice sunny weather, not too hot so excellent temp for the Vikings. The norweigan shooters are spread over a couple of squads, but the National teams are in squad 39, Tommy, Jostein and me are in squad 40, so we are shooting the stage before them. St. Einar and Hans has shoot well for the standard team, Henning has had a troublesome start with, jam and mag. change on a strong / weak hand stage, causing him to drop at least 13 sec. Then got 4 miss's on the next. Open team are all doing ok, Kyrre abit disapointing starting off with a steel miss....

We finished off late around 1900 so getting food, equipment prep. shower was high on the priority list. Then we finished off with a cold coke on the terrace outside the Alfa pension. (quickly renamed to Double alfa pension). Tomorrow we are starting early so its bedtime every minute now.

Day two was an early start for us. Everybody got off to an good start. We are shooting AREA 4 today, 6 stages 90 rounds minimum. All the stages are very good, and there is a lot of moving targets. It seems like most of this prop is working fine, but there has been a couple of reshoots. Jan-Erik and Hansi destroyed a moving swinger today, so they got a 30 minutes brake before it was fixed. Squad 40 was finished before 12:00 today so that was really nice. Squad 39 was all picked for chrono test, so they got an hour more on the range as the chrono guys does not work too fast. Everybody got through that except DPD; 169,7 and welcome to minor.

Day Three, and we are shooting AREA 5 starting at 13:30. Perfect weather, small breeze, overcast and warm. Some rumours regarding chrono yesterday. It might be that tuesdays chrono results will be cancelled due to some precedural error. DPD are now shooting with Steinar's training ammo in the hope of beeing picked again....:-D

Standard team are shooting reasonably ok today. Hans got one miss on the last stages. Open team are consistent, Sigurd is having some gun problem with empty cases jamming. Production team had an awfull day yesterday. Odd with 4 misses, Morten with 4, Olav two misses, and some slow times due to hard poppers. (they always falls on the calibration test) Odd is going for MagTech ammo today and has shoot well. On squad 40 we had Hong Kong Barry beeing the luckiest man on the range. An bad reload with a bang resulted in the RO stopping the shooter. After some discussions with RM, CRO they desided to reinstate him and he got a reshoot. Jostein and me saw this from another angle and this was a lucky one. Frank Sparby was not that lucky, he got a match DQ on stage 25 today. Two close targets on the start, got a triggerfreeze on the last shoot, and when rectifying this he seeks the target over the 90 degree. Very disapointing for Frank.

We are halfway in the match and so it has been nice stages to shoot, much of the targets are close range and not so difficult. Lots of swingers and movers but they are all manageble. Jostein T YOU shold have been here.....

AREA 1 and 108 rounds today, staring early. Weather is overcast and it rained for a few seconds. It has been an intersting day. Starting off with Henning forgotten his holster back at the hotell, no fuss Frank S. delivered it on time. Standard team has shoot so-so today. Steinar not happy with forgetting a reload and shooting empty on a glider. Hans and Henning has one miss each. Both had a stage winning run on stage 5 today, so that will almost certain be a stage win. Open team are keeping the pace up, execpt Sigurd. Gun problem from yesterday has not solved it self over the night so he struggled on the first stage, and on the second he just holstered his gun, packed his bag and went home... and home in this perspective is Norway!!!!!!!!!!!. Not acceptable when your on the national team.

Chrono results from tuesday was cancelled and new ammo was picked today. DPD is now back in the major league again 174. The queue to the chrono was really long after the first shift. I was busy briefing a stage when they where picking chrono ammo so I was not picked.. not sure how to handle that, but if they are missing me I will probably show up on a list somewhere.

Had a chat with Saul Kirsch at the end of the day, he had 4 major gun stops so far this match, then he switched to his backup gun just to get into troubble again, so the match is far gone for him now. Eric has only had one minor upset so he is most likely on top.

Regarding the swedes they are doing okay. Patrik destroyed his Glock on a 140 points stages, so that cost him all the points. He has replaced the barrell with a new one from Robban and is on track again. Marianne got a DQ on the first day, due to dropping a loaded gun when starting on stage.

Last day tomorrow, AREA 2 is waiting for us...

Ken