IDPA World Championships, September 2015

GunSite SA | 24 October 2015

By Manhar Parshotam.

So I had the wonderful opportunity to go for the IDPA World Championship this September held at Tulsa Oklahoma.

It was an experience, that every competitive shooter needs to have in their career. I have never in my life experience a journey such as this.

LET me begin with my planning. It was a difficult road to walk thru, the planning and the financial costs of such an experience was immense. I none the less pursued it and with great support from my family and fellow shooters I accomplished it.

I needed to save money for this and what helped me was the postponement of the world champs from March to Sept 2015. This gave me a few more months to save extra. If you are like me and begging, pleading for sponsor does not work, save money every month. Its a costly exercise for us South Africans. Although in hind site it does not cost that much to fly in and fly out just for a match.

Getting my paperwork in order was a tedious task but i managed to get the following for the USA.

Visa
ATF permit
SAPS import and export permit.

I was very concerned about traveling to New York after the competition as there are many articles on the internet about it being a non-firearm friendly airport, thus at the last minute I decided not to carry my own firearm and ammunition. I should have done this as i found that they are not so bad regarding this. As long as you follow the rules.

Tulsa, Oklahoma

What can i say about this lovely city. We had much fun getting around. The hotel we stayed at was a match hotel and very nice. The city is wonderful and the people are very friendly.

The match was held at the US shooting academy in Tulsa, imagine a very expensive golf course and add a little sugar to it, this place was huge and very helpful. I must make a special mention to Karen, Buck and Phillip ( a South African) for going all out for the South African Team.

World Championship Match

We started with the match registration the night before. I must compliment IDPA management for a well run system of operation, all 600 shooters were registered in like an hour. IDPA management was very efficient, helpful and if i must say humble in there operations.

The entire week ran punctually, they don’t wait for you and everything goes according to plan. Hats off to the Americans for doing this.

Stage designs were wonderful, every country represented had a stage designed according to the ins and outs of the country. The french teams COF was based on a recent terrorist attack, South Africans obviously had a store robbery.

A special mention to all the Safety officers on the shoots, you guys were awesome especially Bob Dilman. I have to note here that all the SO’s were of one standard, there was not deviation from the rule book. There was no interpretation. The SO’s new their rules. Well done to all of you.

The SA team shot over 2 days, half a day each and was wondering how do you shoot 16 stages over a time span of just 8 hours. Well, when you have a well oiled machine like IDPA running it, we shot the first day from 8:00 till 12:30, the second day from 13:00 till 17:00. This can be done. I hope SADPA will take note of this as it is very possible. That’s how they run 15 nations, 600 shooters thru 5 days of shooting.

Now, a sport has official teams, sponsors, management alike. Except for us South Africans, every single country was represented alike. The french, Italians, Venezuelans all had uniformity, sponsors and management guiding them. No wonder they are good at the sport.

My highlight of this experience was meeting and watching the Grand Masters of the sport. In our squad we had the Venezuelans shooting with us, one of them a master won the match. Watching him shoot was wonderful. Watching the Grand masters was breathtaking, Robert Vogel, Mike Seeklander, Ashley Rourark, Scot Warren, Randy Jackson, man these people are amazing. For the final dinner I ran around and got everyone to sign an official T shirt for me. These prizes and the experience are one off, and priceless to me. Thank you to everyone.

https://manharparshotam.wordpress.com/2015/10/20/idpa-world-championships-september-2015-3/