Two local sharp shooters have represented their sport on the world stage, travelling to Hungary to compete in the 45th FITASC world sporting championships in Hungary.
Ernie Scheidl and Tim Widdison represented not only the region, but their country, at the world championships.
Scheidl competed as part of the veterans team alongside Robin Shoiwer from the Riverland and Victorian Russell Pigdon.
Tim Widdison competed in the Seniors team and was joined by fellow South Australian Chris Bell and Michael Birgan from Queensland.
It was a tough competition for the locals with Scheidl describing the event as “one of the toughest technical championships we have been too, which was pretty much everyone’s thoughts”.
“It was a fantastic event, with the most technical targets that most shooters had encountered, which is how it should be,” Scheidl said.
The three Australian teams fared well at the competition, with the Ladies team finishing fourth, the Seniors seventh and the Veterans fourth.
“We were a bit stiff overall in the veterans, the USA tipped us over the line by seven points on the last day,” Scheidl said.
It was a close finish amongst the top four with the Australian Veterans team only nine targets behind first.
The world cup is played in conjunction with the world championships and overall Scheidl managed to finish in eighth place in the Veterans category.
“We think we could have done better as a team, and personally,” Scheidl said.
“But looking at the difficulty of the targets and how everyone else shot I think we did pretty well.”
With more than 1000 people competing it was tough competition.
The Australians were up against shooters from Great Britain, USA and France who all shoot competitively full time.
“We shoot and practice as much as we can, which is usually once a week, twice leading up to the major championships, they do it every day,” Scheidl said.
Scheidl believes that Australia competed well against the more professional teams
“We went over there with no expectations as they do it every day of the week, but we are good enough to get top four,” he said.
“However if we had the opportunities the others countries do we’d definitely be top one or two.
“We were hoping to do the best we could and I think we did, Tim Widdison who competed in the Seniors team also went well, in tough competition.”
Scheidl said the competition proved tough due to the complexity of the targets and the weather conditions, which proved a step up from the current climate in the South East.
“This was one of the best ones and even though it was an extremely hard competition, especially with the weather conditions of around 35 degrees every day,” he said.
It’s not the first time Scheidl has represented Australia.
“I have shot at the world championships a few times now, and this was probably one of the best ones,” he said.
Scheidl said it was a proud moment for himself and Widdison to have the opportunity to represent the country and South East on an international stage.
“Anyone who gets to represent their country is a great achievement, I do not think we let anyone down, we did the best we can,” he said.
“To represent your country and the South East is certainly a highlight.
“It was a great championship with very technical targets, good people and Hungary was a beautiful country.”
Scheidl said the competitors were already looking ahead to how the locals could improve for the next championships.
“One of the things we can improve on is shooting much longer distance targets cause that’s what happened at the championships and it took our team a bit to adjust,” he said.
This will be a focus as the Aussies start to prepare for the next championships in March next year which will be hosted by the USA.
“I’m looking forward to it, but the team has a bit of work to do before then,” Scheidl said.
