Para muestra lo que está pasando en el Cto. de Europa de IPSC, llegan chorros de tinta como los de agua que han caído, pero poniendo a parir a la Organización de todo un Cto. Continental, leed vosotros mismo...
http://www.ipscmatches.org/2016ehc
Ralf Jensen OK. This will be a different post than normal: No high fives and smiling faces so please bear with me - but I feel that it needs to be said, even though I probably will get hammered for doing so. But here goes: I've been shooting IPSC for over 23 years, placing decent from time to time including winning two silver medals at previous EHC's. So I'm a pretty experienced shooter and know both good and bad matches. Thankfully the vast majority have been fantastic organized events which I am very thankful for.
However, in my IPSC career I have never seen a worse organized match (including level 3's) than the current EHC 2016. I hate my self for saying it, but it's the truth.
Examples are plenty: Dangerously slippery or sticky ground, fault lines not visible under the mud, low quality targets bending after few raindrops, unpainted steel so difficult to see that shooting became unfair to some shooters, 2 stages cancelled, many reshoots, all clamshell targets deactivated, not sufficient helpers for the RO's, unworthy conditions for RO's, shooters shoveling gravel themselves, shooters requesting the headlight of cars being used to illuminate a stage, opening ceremony with 1200 shooters invited to a castle for food/drinks that wasn't there, etc.. Shooters and RO's fight on and try to keep a happy face, but all are becoming more and more frustrated.
Not being prepared to host an event like this is one thing, but not reacting sufficiently is another. An example of the symbolic improvements are dropping some gravel on "mainroad" next to the stages on the 3rd day of muddy shooting - but not putting it on the muddy stages where the shooters actually run.
The weather is NOT at fault here. It only brought out the insufficient preparation of the match organization: Water resistant targets/patches, tents for the shooters, better drainage, gravel/woodchips on the stages, better stage construction, etc. all could have made a difference. Or even better - change the schedule/location of the match to avoid shooting in cold/rainy conditions. I have been told that the same conditions have happened at previous matches here in Eger. If this is true, then not learning from history is a bitter pill.
I (as I'm sure most other IPSC shooters) have a self image of IPSC being a professionel, legitimate sport on par with UIT/ISSF. I mean, why aren't we in the Olympics, right? But...if this event is representative of what a continental IPSC championship should look like, then it is quite hard for me to uphold that self image of IPSC. I fear this is a setback to our self image that will take us years to overcome.
What should be the next step? How do we move on from here?
Well, we have to learn from the mistakes that happened here to make sure history does not repeat itself. Only so can we start rebuilding our IPSC self image and look forward to future IPSC level 4 matches that will be the fantastic events that IPSC, RO's and 1200 shooters paying a lot of money on entry fee, travel and training all deserve. Just my 0,02$ worth...
Hasta han salido memes de esos muy ilustrativos.
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- CTO. EUROPA HUNGRÍA 2016
Saludos,
