Practical Handgun

“Day one of the Extreme was survival day!” - Denis Altuna, CZ Shadow Team – France.

I got out of bed on Wednesday morning at 7.30am and opened the curtains – OH NO!!! It was absolutely pouring down with rain!!! The match had just started, but we were on the afternoon squads. I went back to bed for another hour, or so. I eventually surfaced and went to breakfast. Shouting across the breakfast bar at Frontsight’s other European correspondent, “Hey Hanneke, you heading out to the range?”, she looked at me as if I was mad! Absolutely no one was in a hurry to the range!

We eventually made our way out and registered, but the rain was still hammering down and we could not even make the effort to have a look at the stages!! With a 2pm start we were ready at our start stage for 1.50pm. 2pm, no squad and no RO’s! Had the rest of the squad stayed in bed? With the conditions in the morning, had the RO’s floated away? 2.05pm and people start appearing. The rain was still falling and many stages were water logged!

On day 1 there was heavy rain in the morning and flooded ranges in the afternoon. The conditions were EXTREME!!!

One Saturday last December, in the depths of winter, which is the closed season for European IPSC competitors, many people sat in front of a computer screen, hand poised over the mouse button. With accounts created in the Match Organisation System ( MOS ) they watched the hands of the clock slowly creep towards the hour. At 6pm European time the SVI European Open web site was available to take entries. Within 25 minutes the entry list and squads were full, which was six months before the match date! 

As the European Handgun Championship ( www.ehc2010.org ) takes place in September 2010, the Infinity European Open, held in Philippsburg, Germany became one of the main matches for many IPSC shooters in Europe this year in the lead up to the Europeans, which takes place in Belgrade, Serbia. The match organisers took on the big task of allowing 325 shooters in 21 squads of 15 competitors each to participate. Over the past eight years, the event organized by Herbert Jakob and his team of helpers in Philippsburg each May has established itself as one of the premier IPSC matches in Europe.

Laetitia Daguenel on her way to winning lady’s Production Division with her CZ Shadow.

EXTREME suitably describes just about everything for this match, with 30 stages, 550 round count with the top IPSC shooters in all divisions and this year they also made sure that we had another extreme weather event! Organised by the Hell squad - Moravian IPSC Club and the Czech Republic IPSC Region, the Ceska Zbrojovka 2009 Extreme European Open ( EEO ) was a truly spectacular event! Outside of Level 4 and 5 IPSC competitions, it is not often that match organisers take on the mighty task of running a 30 stage competition for over 500 competitors. In fact, the European Championship would not match this event for the number of stages and the round count of 550 rounds.