Euro Med Cup 2003

Well, we are almost packed and ready for Euro Med Cup 2003 in Marseilles, France. 24 stages and approx 367 rounds minimum, May 2 -4. We are leaving OSLO 1620 tomorrow, plane switch in Amsterdam and then we're in Nice. We have rented a car there so we will drive to Cheval Blance in the evening/night. Thursday is registration and we will probably have a look at the stages. Friday is 10 stages, Saturday also 10 stages, Sunday is a abit easier only 4 stages,  then shoot off and finally prize ceremony (I hope)

As you may remember from last year, things did not went as smooth as we had expected, most devastating was the failure of proper verify, stages and match results due to using french software and not MSS. I expect this to be NO issue this time around.

Anyway we are looking forward to this match. The shooting range is absolutely magnificent. Two big areas and the stages are side by side so running the match and keeping the tight schedule is "almost" easy. I say almost because something always gets broken, destroyed or Murphy is just playing around. We where impressed by the quality of all the stages, decoration was dazzeling and 20 out of 24 stages was brilliant and very fun to shoot.

If time and creativity permits is, I will try to keep you all updated on the match....

DAY ONE, Schipol

Custom clerance went like a breeze, no questions and the lady at the check-in counter smiled all the way. No fuss with the max 5 kg ammo limit, so we where thru in minutes. A bit hassel in the x-ray section, Kyrre had to almost go naked throug, the scanner keept beeping every time he passed.

We are now sitting at Schipool Airport in Amsterdam, celebrating the Dutch Queens birthday with a Grolsch in our hands. We have 3 hours of transit time here until we take off to Nice.

So every thing seems fine at the moment.

DAY TWO, Cavaillion

@00:00

Last report for today, we had breakfast at McDonalds. That is alway a strange expirience in France, we got into a quarrel with the same lady from last year. I do not think she recognized us, so this is probably quite normal. We then drove to the range for registration, but as we should know!!! that was not until 17:00, so we had to wait.hmmm, well we had a chat with both Eric and Saul. They had both set up their stands, Eric's is a bit bigger than Saul's, but as Saul said. It's not size but quality that counts. Of course Kyrre had an other view of that case, pulling up his shirt. After saying hello Raymond, the club director, we went for a stage walk. We where a bit dissapointed about the stages. Some of them seemed to be very simple and boring, but I think that will not be the case. I also got the impression that there is more speedshots than normal.

Anyway, we're in squad 12, 13 in total, the super squad is only 10 so I quess they are slower than us and needs the time. hehe. The plumber is first man out tomorrow on a 32 rounds long course, that will be entertaining. We all know who started first in Eskilstuna Match....We are going to shoot 11 stages tomorrow so that will be a hard test. 10 stages on Saturday and only 3 on Sunday.

The wether is fine, some clouds, no wind and temps around 23C. There has been forcasted rain tomorrow so we'll see, hopefully that is not the case.

Except from that, we have not done much, wasted a couple of hours on the local bar, same place as last year so you cannot accuse us for beeing innovative....The plumber got a warm Irish Coffe this time around, last year it was cold and we where told that that is the way an Irish coffe is in France.

@11:00
We are just about awake in Cavaillion, Thursday morning. Yesterday went just fine, but putting us back to back in the airplane was not a good idea. I think we made more noise than the rest of the plane together, and it is funny how the seatbelt can cause so much attention when Kyrre is sitting between me and the plumber...hehe he looked like a tomato at some point....

We arrived at the Cote'D Asure airport in Nice around 23:00 in the evening. Collected all our baggage and went for the custom clerance. They did of course not speak anything else than french so it was abit difficult for us to explain what we wanted. So after a few minutes of gogo babbel they just pushed us thru.

We took the shuttlebus to the car rental and got a nice SEAT Alhambra, 7-seater. We packed it full and after Kyrre had tried it against the one-way sign, we shifted driver and Even got us on the right track. We got on the A8 and cruiseding in 150 kmh. We arrived at the hotel around 02 in the night, and them plumber needed a beer so we went for a walk downtown. Everything was closed except for a private club...after some small efforts to get attention....it seems like it really was a private club. The rest of the city is quite dead and closed so we called it a night.

DAY THREE @00:20

We woke up to heavy rain, so the forcast was unfortunally accurate. Arrived at the range and stage 12 around 08:00. The whole range is on clay ground, so slippery when wet is a good description. Nobody wanted to leave the car. The CRO said that stage 12 was to slippery to shot so we had to wait abit. After approx one hour the rain was starting to clear up. We went for briefing and the surface was absolutely terrible. The clay clogged our shoes so it was difficult to walk/run. After another half hour the stage was closed, so was also stage 13. So we jumped to stage 14 and just after 10:00 we started shooting at last, quite heavily delayed. So we started off with a couple of speedshots. Frank ran into som strange problems with his gun, the case bottom was blown off, so he aborted the first stage, and we tried to solve the problem. The same thing happende again on the next stage. We then desided to change ammo. Even got help for Julian Boit with new ammo and things started to work again. (Thanks Julian).

Trying to catch up two stages on a 11 stage a day schedule is not easy. We managed too squezze in stage 13 at some point. The plumber, Even and me have shoot quite good. I have only lost 26 points on 10 stages so I am satisfied. Franks is running OK now with the new ammo. Even had some trouble with a steel target that did not want to fall. Kyrre was unfortunate to breach a saftey angle and is out of the match. We where finished at the range around 20:00 so it has been a very long day. The surface dried up quite fast and the sun got heavy around midday. The stages has been very good, the briefing is still in french but we have enough routine to get the picture.

After a quick gun cleaning and bag prep we went out for some food. Seems like the wether is going to be ok tomorrow, we are starting in stage 23 and will have to catch up stage 12 sometime in the afternoon.

DAY FOUR @ 20:00

Just back from the range, today was also a late day. We had to shoot stage 12 at the end of the day othervise it will be scored zero. Not too keen about that, but we finished of the 11th stage today in style. Today has been an extrem hot day, no skies at all, clear sun and a small breeze just too fool you off with the sunburn effect. Everybody is shooting quite well, The Plumber is fast and very steady on the points, just a few off one each stage. Even have a a few quick misses, I have miss/noshoot and 3 deltas, so I am not that happy. Frank is going really well, no hickups and the points keep comming. Kyrre has been walking around taking pictures and video's, specially from the supersquad. Eric is leading the match... big surprice, Eddy was on second this morning, but after running past 2 targets on stage 12 he's not. Saul is now on second. Really bad luck, but stage 12 is abit twistie with some back and fort shooting.

We started on stage 23, and went for the chrono just before lunch. The Plumber won that contest with 185 in factor(OPEN) he he, the gyus at the chrono just laughed when the shoot the three shot's. I came in o a good second 183, and Even 180, but major Frank has new ammo loaned from Julien so this had not been tested, 169,6. The strange thing is that they accepted it and he's still scoring in major.

After lunch we had a special stage, the jungle lane, semisurprice. 32 shoots minimum and 32 ipcs targets....that could put your memorizing on a test. In fact is was not that bad all targets was in 4 or 8 groups. Eric did that on on low 21, The Plumer 28. After I had finished that stage, the RO took one magazine from me and I had to go and do the BOX test. It did'nt fit when the RO tried, so I had to show him how... OK just about. Even was also in the box, it did not go, so even turned the box and then it went in  phuu.

The stages are really nice, except from the classifiers, they are as boring as it gets. On stage 7 we discovered a way to shoot a swinger before it was released, and we gained some seconds. This was due to a major stage building error. We have heard some rumours that we will have to reshoot this stage, but we left the range and no official statments has been released, so until that happens we would not take any actions.

After 11 hard stages, and 11 hours on the range we're glad to be back at the hotel. Kyrre has been at the local pizza resturant and booked table for tonight. That resturant is really popular so we did not get in there yesterday. Saul and John from the Netherland is joining us.

Tomorrow will be hopefully just 3 stages, then the shoot off and prize ceremony. We will drive back to Nice in the afternoon and check out the night life in Nice. Do not expect any reports from that trip.. heheh

Ken