The 2009 FITASC (Federation Internationale De Tir Aux Armes Sportives De Chasse) World Sporting Clay Shooting Championships returned to Australia after 15 years. The event took place in Warrnambool Victoria.
GEW sponsored Sarah Hamburger, one of Britain’s top lady clay pigeon shooters, by providing the financial support for her to attend the event. Sarah first started shooting at Chobham Clay Pigeon Club at the age of 13 but it wasn’t until 2004 that she started to shoot competitively. Within two years, she was selected to shoot for the Great Britain and England shooting teams.
Over the last three years she has won gold and silver medals at the European and World Championships in Austria, Cyprus, France and the Czech Republic and at last count was ranked 10th in the world.
Sarah Hamburger recently secured first place in the Great Britain team rankings for the World Championships in Australia and she describes the event in her own words:
“The shoot itself was very challenging – the first two days were the most interesting as unfortunately they just moved the hoops for the second two days. The targets were at difficult angles and involved all sorts of birds – from rabbits to bumble bees and rockets. We didn’t manage to get a GB ladies team together due to all the politics from the guy organising the teams which was a real shame so it was just me shooting as a solus competitor.”
“Day one was boiling hot – 32 degrees! I didn’t cope very well with the heat as it was the first day like it an ended up shooting a very poor 13 and 15. The second day the weather changed completely and went down to a more reasonable 21 degrees so my scores improved to an 18 and 19 as I was prepared for another day of stifling heat! I was then a fair few targets behind the Australian girls who were used to shooting in the heat so ended up trying far too hard to make up my scores on day 3 without much success. The last day I started on the peg at 7.30am in the pouring rain – apparently more rain in one morning than they have had all year! My shooting was unsurprisingly poor and I ended up finishing on 131 – one of my lowest scores ever. The ladies shoot was won by a Spanish girl who shot 149. I ended up 15th which was a very unsatisfying result as I had expected to come away with a podium place. The overall shoot was won by an Australian guy who beat Digweed by one target.”
“I am really disappointed that I didn’t achieve my goals at the shoot but want to thank you again for your support for me during this time.”