Showing posts with label issf world cup. Show all posts
Showing posts with label issf world cup. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 5, 2021

2021 - Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone! 

I'm looking forward to getting back to some competitions this year. I'm hoping the ISSF World Cup Series will all move forward as scheduled. My first ISSF World Cup since 2019 will be in Changwon, South Korea in April. I love competing in South Korea and was there in 2018 for the 52nd ISSF World Championships.

The return to sport internationally has many challenges during a global pandemic. We've already seen many limitations with travel. I'll go into more details on the various protocols in place to keep everyone safe. For now, it's good to be back to training and wanted to wish you all a healthy and prosperous new year. :)

Stay healthy everyone!

Tuesday, January 28, 2020

Happy New Year!

I'm definitely late getting this post from drafts to published! ;)

Happy New Year all! I was rather quiet this past Fall due to focus on work related projects and less about shooting training. It's been a hectic year with getting let go from my job and figuring out my next chapter.

Highlights from 2019 in my Instagram best nine. Ask me about anything in the comments below!

Highlights from 2019!

It's now 2020 and lots of "stuff" is in the works. Some I can talk about now and some I will later on.

For now...  shooting!

Upcoming competitions I'll be competing and representing Canada at:

Busy schedule filled with lots of travel. The one I am still figuring out schedule for is the Grand Prix in May as it conflicts with the BC Provincials but is also very close to the ISSF World Cup dates. Main issue is it's a lot of travel between Vancouver and Toronto. I'll connect to Munich via Toronto airport.

I'll be doing at least one blog post a month this year so stay tuned for more updates from Europe next week!

Monday, July 8, 2019

Spring 2019 Updates

It's been a busy couple months with training and travel. May and June I was away quite a bit with multiple stops to Toronto. The Shooting Federation of Canada's high performance team trials for the 2020 team were in May, then the ISSF World Cup stage in Munich end of May then a team training camp early June at the Pan Am Games legacy range in Cookstown, ON.

My competitor number for the 2019 HPTT

Lynda Kiejko, Allan Harding, Kim Britton, Liz Gustafson

Mark Hynes and Allan Harding

Do it!
After the high performance team trials I stopped in and shot at Target Sports Canada with Nicolas from TheGunBlog.ca. Fun times! Noisy club but great to see how many people were out and interested in target sports.

Visiting Target Sports Canada range with Nic from TheGunBlog.ca

On my way to Munich, Germany! Thanks for the upgrade Air Canada!

Competitor number for ISSF Munich World Cup stage

Lynda, Lea, Lisa, me

Team Canada out for food and drinks

The busy indoor 10m range in Munich

I stopped in to visit ELEY to test out their tenex air pellets for my Steyr evo10e air pistol.

Barrel testing ELEY tenex air in my Steyr evo10e

ELEY tenex air acquired! Let's do this!

After getting back from Munich I had a few days at home before flying back out to Toronto for a training camp. I stopped in and visited a couple ranges while there. I stopped in and met with members of Toronto Revolver Club and also stopped in and visited Silverdale Gun Club.

Visiting Toronto Revolver Club!

Shooting 25m distance at Silverdale. Beautiful day!

Then back at the high performance team training camp to train with my Team Canada teammates on their way to the 2019 Pan Am Games in Lima, Peru.

Stuart Burns and Mark Hynes shooting 10m at training camp 

I'm currently in Whitehorse, Yukon and back to training soon to get ready for the 2019 Canadian National Pistol Championships. Stay tuned!

Also find me on Twitter and Instagram as @alharding!

Tuesday, July 24, 2018

2018 Canadian National Pistol Champion!

Just getting caught up after a whirlwind of events, work, and trips... well sort of caught up. ;)

A couple weeks ago I became the 2018 Canadian National Pistol Champion, defending my title and setting a new Canadian Nationals 10m Men's Final record! I also teamed up with 2016 Olympian Lynda Kiejko in the new 10m mixed team event and together we won the National title in the mixed team 10m event!

Kiejko and Harding our National Champions in 10m mixed team event
Photo credit: Kim Britton



In May, I was at the ISSF World Cup stage in Munich, Germany for the final stage of the 2018 ISSF World Cup Series. I shot a 568/600. Awesome!

Here's the grouping from one of my better series of the match:




Next up in the 52nd ISSF World Championships in Changwon, Korea

Follow me on Twitter and Instagram @alharding for my latest updates!




Wednesday, May 9, 2018

2018 ISSF World Cup Series updates

I am currently at Fort Benning, Georgia for the USA stage of the 2018 ISSF World Cup Series. Finished up today's men's 10m pistol event with a 562 and 17x's. This is my second highest World Cup score and I believe the most x's I've ever shot.

The competition is going well. Picked up on a couple things I need to work on after having a similar mid-match performance in Guadalajara, Mexico a couple months ago in March. The 3rd and 4th series in the match giving me a bit of trouble then I finish strong. I'll get the middle of the match as consistent as the start and end and it will give my scores a boost.

Mexico went well in March. I shot at that range in 2014 at the Championship of the Americas and went back there this year to work on some of the issues I ran into in 2014. So far this ISSF season has been going well.

Me shooting in Guadalajara at the start of the
2018 ISSF World Cup season in March 

Coming up next will be the Canadian Team Trials in Cookstown, Ontario and then I'll go from Toronto to Munich, Germany for the World Cup stage there.



Sunday, April 17, 2016

Arrived in Rio, Brazil

Ok the title is a bit misleading since I've actually been here a few days now. ;) Just getting caught up on things now that I've gotten settled in to Rio and gotten used to where things are, and how the buses to the range are scheduled and where to buy things, food, sim cards, etc.

Welcome to Rio!
Rio is pretty incredible! The Canadian Team is staying at a hotel on Copacabana Beach in Rio and the views are stunning at sunrise until sunset.

Copacabana Beach!
Today, I shot my pre event training at the shooting venue which will be the shooting venue for the 2016 Olympics being held this August here in Rio. Everything felt awesome, the range is great, lighting is great, and there was very little wind. Optimal conditions!

Yesterday I was the guest commentator for the men's 10m pistol Finals which you can watch here:



You can also check out a small update in the Coast Report about my current trip to Rio to compete.

Lots more to come! My main event is happening tomorrow morning 11am Rio time.

Wednesday, March 9, 2016

ISSF World Cup Series first stage complete!

I'm in Hong Kong enjoying a bit of time off after last week's competition in Bangkok, Thailand. I had a great time visiting, competing, and enjoying the hot weather in Bangkok.

The competition was a great experience and one that resulted in some good takeaways to get ready for Rio next month. The toughest part was probably adjusting to the heat and humidity -- I had lots of rain but a lot of cold weather to train in.

I've been posting on other websites and apps also so click the links below to follow me there also:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alharding/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/allanharding
Twitter: https://twitter.com/alharding
Vine: https://vine.co/alharding

Rio, Brazil is next mid-April... stay tuned!

Saturday, February 13, 2016

Cold and rainy training!

We've been having some classic Pacific North West weather lately... lots of rain, and the cold temperature makes it challenging to stay warm. I'm enjoying it anyway... it's a day out at the range! :)

Shooting at the Sunshine Coast Rod & Gun Club
Only a couple weeks until I fly to Bangkok and Hong Kong for the first stage in the 2016 ISSF World Cup Series! Training has been going great except for the temperature. I'm glad however that I can shoot outdoors and that it's not covered in snow.


Sunday, January 17, 2016

New season! Training for 2016 ISSF season is well under way!

The new year is a great time for doing a check-in with yourself to reflect on the previous year and get set for the current year. 2015 was an exciting time being a pre-Olympic year and being able to compete at the Pan Am Games in Toronto Canada and to have also competed in South Korea and Germany.

This new year has gotten off to a great start -- unlike the speed at which I post here.. ;)

I'm a couple weeks into my 2016 training plan after taking the month of December off. I visited family, moved, and have been focused on making sure I'm on the right track going into the 2016 ISSF World Cup season.

My current plan is to compete at the World Cups hosted in Bangkok, Rio, and Munich as well as competing at the Canadian Airgun Grand Prix (April) and Canadian Nationals (TBD). I'm looking forward to all 5 of those competitions especially Rio which will be the pre-Olympic event held at the Rio 2016 shooting venue.

Canada has not been able to secure a quota spot in any men's pistol events since 1996! Time to change that!

The last Rio 2016 opportunity to secure a quota spot for Team Canada was at the Pan American Games last Summer. For me, it's all about the next 4 years and I have my sights set on Tokyo 2020!

This year I will be focused on the 50m Olympic style shooting event. It's one of the most difficult precision pistol events going back to the 19th century. Shooting has been an Olympic sport since the 1896 Olympics in Athens! The 50m event has had very few changes over the last century and it's only 1 of 2 shooting events whose targets have never changed -- most targets in other shooting events have been reduced in size over time to make it more difficult.

As a software developer, I'm always looking for ways I can leverage those skills to improve my shooting and currently I've tapped into some video game technology to study my movements, timing, follow through. Here's a sneak peek at what I'm working on:

Hacking code to get to Tokyo 2020!

Keep in touch here or find me (@alharding) on Twitter and Instagram and I can be found on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/allanharding




Sunday, July 6, 2014

First time in China and my second highest World Cup score to date!

I arrived in Beijing a few days ago after a long 11hr flight from Vancouver. I hadn't really gotten a chance to rest much after getting home from the back to back World Cup stages in Germany and Slovenia on June 22nd. That Europe trip was followed by a short work trip to San Francisco almost immediately after getting back. Its been a very busy year and still lots more coming up with the Commonwealth Games in a couple weeks and the quadrennial ISSF World Championships in September and the Championship of the Americas in October.

Arriving in Beijing I had 2 main themes I kept hearing from people who had been here before; the food and the air quality. So far the food has been amazing! The air quality though I noticed the moment I got off the plane and looked out the airport window (my 'window seat' on the plane had no actual window -- seat 19A on a 777). Smoggy and humid and irritating my throat. That was Day 1 and I was missing the fresh Pacific Northwest air and the blue skies!

You don't notice the hazy smog indoors too much in smaller rooms but if you go into large indoor spaces you can see the glowing haze around the lights. The indoor 10m range at the Beijing Shooting Range Hall is big enough where you can see it indoors.

10m indoor range at the Beijing Shooting Range Hall
Legacy venue from the 2008 Olympic Summer Games

I shot my 2nd best ISSF World Cup score to date, my best score being shot earlier this year at Fort Benning. I'm happy with the way I shot here in Beijing and definitely continue to learn a lot from other shooters and in my own discovery. You always want to do better but... on the international scene, I'm still very new having gotten half of my international competition experience within the last 4 weeks. I'm learning lots and will continue to adapt and make changes to improve my performance.

I've been able to make it out to do some sightseeing and planning on visiting a couple locations of the Great Wall tomorrow!

Visited Tiananmen Square
At the Temple of Heaven

A little over 2 weeks until the 2014 XX Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland! Great to hear that Canadian shooting legend Susan Nattrass was named Canada's flag bearer!






Friday, June 20, 2014

Amazing shooters at ISSF Munich and Maribor World Cups

I'm all finished shooting for the Munich and Maribor stages of the 2014 ISSF World Cup Series. I'll be going to Beijing in about 9 days to shoot at the final stage of the series. I would have liked to have finished higher in both locations but there are some clear areas I need to focus on in my training to improve. My timing is still off and I'm taking too long between shots. This longer time leads to over-thinking which, in a sport that is very mental focused, you just can't do.

It's amazing to watch the top 8 finalists across various disciplines shoot in the ISSF World Cup finals. This is where the top 8 people out of the 100 or so trying to qualify start at 0 points and shoot until a champion is determined. I definitely pick up a lot just watching the top people compete in their disciplines.

Women's 50m 3 positions Final

I was able to do a bit of sightseeing in Germany, Italy, Austria, and Slovenia and have posted photos on various websites:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/allanharding
Google+: https://plus.google.com/+AlHarding
Twitter: https://twitter.com/alharding

Feel free to follow me!

Friday, June 13, 2014

Made it to Maribor

Our team made it to Maribor this afternoon and it was a bit stressful and chaotic trying to find our place to stay. We were never able to find it.. at all. Even using exact long lat GPS coordinates we ended up a completely different hotel. We're still not sure if where we were originally booked to stay even exists.

After driving for hours near the vacant ski resorts around Maribor we gave up and went into Maribor to find a new hotel to stay at. Finally, after a long day driving in from Venice, Italy we got ourselves somewhat sorted out -- our hotel locks from the inside AND outside and all the hallway lights turn off after about 5 minutes. Classic.

We made it out to the range earlier for our first stop before Maribor and we found what looks like a range under construction. 10m range is on the 3rd floor and there is no elevator yet -- I feel bad for the rifle shooters who have to carry all their gear up all those stairs. Lots of fresh new paint and carpet smell. The entire place looks like it will be absolutely amazing when it is complete but from what we saw today we were a bit concerned that the range would be ready for people to shoot tomorrow.

Indoor 10m range 'looked' the most complete. This will be a really nice
range when the elevator and balcony are all finished

Outdoor 50m range was missing a few items earlier today

I'm hoping to do better than my shoot in Munich earlier this week. I was unable to get settled in properly and didn't shoot at where I was hoping to be at. Going into the match I had everything lined up the way I had planned going into it -- somewhere before the start of the match though something wasn't right. I've got a list of things I'll be working on and adjusting for my shoot this coming week here in Maribor.

More to come!


Saturday, June 7, 2014

Arrived in Munich for 2014 ISSF World Cup!

I flew out of Vancouver on June 3rd and flew to Toronto to catch up with teammates Connor Deneka and Ben Taylor who I would be travelling with the next 3 weeks. It was great to see them at our next gate and unfortunately our teammate Audrey-Anne Dery got delayed flying out of Quebec City and couldn't make our Toronto-to-Munich flight so we caught up with her the morning of June 5th.

Once arriving in Munich we got our luggage and gun cases and headed through customs and then caught up with our ISSF host who directed us to our shuttle bus. One of the best parts of attending these ISSF World Cup events is seeing all the various teams from countries from all over the place who have flown in to compete here. There are close to 1300 athletes from 96 nations competing here!

First stop after arriving in Munich is to the range to drop off our rifles and pistols at the armoury for storage during our time in Munich. It was at this point that we hit the second hiccup on our trip... after leaving our backpacks in the shuttle bus, thinking we would be quick to go in and pick up our accreditation and drop off our guns, the bus left without us to the host hotels. Noooo! Thanks to the helpful staff at the ISSF they were able to track down our things and bring them to our hotel the next day.


Competitor #1238!

After catching up with Audrey-Anne we headed to Marienplatz, the city's main central square since 1158! It's amazing to see the old and new buildings around this part of the city. The Glockenspiel at Marianplatz is cool to see.. I'm always amazed by things with lots of moving parts and I imagine the maintenance must be constant.

After taking in some sights it was back to business and one of the first things on my schedule was going through the open training time. During open training each country has reserved lanes for them to practice, and me being the only one from Canada representing 10m, I had the lane to myself. 20 shots in and I was very happy with my results. Awesome.

Next was getting the best H&N Finale Match pellets to use. This involves putting the airgun in a vice and shooting at targets with various tins of pellets from their manufacturing line. It turned out that Lot #40181 gave the best results so I picked up 20 tins (10,000 pellets) which will be enough to cover me for the rest of the competitions I'll be at this year. Back in Vancouver when I'm training, I'm less concerned about the best batch to use and just focus on training so I use the same brand but they're not tested. When shooting for a competition score at the international level, I want the best grouping I can get though so I keep these tested ones reserved for competitions.


Results from my H&N pellet testing plus some extras that H&N included.
Thanks H&N Sport!

I go through pre-event training on Tuesday and then shoot for score on Wednesday. You can see realtime scoring of all events on the ISSF Munich World Cup site and follow me on twitter at @alharding for more updates!

Monday, May 26, 2014

1 week until Munich stage of 2014 ISSF World Cup Series

One more week until I travel to Europe for the Munich and Maribor stages of the 2014 ISSF World Cup Series! I'll be flying to Toronto June 3rd and catching up with teammates Audrey-Anne Dery, Ben Taylor, and Connor Deneka, before flying to Munich. This will be my second time shooting at the Olympia-Schießanlage range - one of the best ranges I've been to!

On June 12th we'll make the drive to Maribor, Slovenia for the World Cup stage there and then returning home about a week later. Busy busy!

Training has been going great lately with the new SIUS electronic scoring system I now have setup. It makes it great being able to shoot with the same electronic scoring system used at the World Cup and other international events.

New SIUS electronic scoring on the left replaces my
paper hand crank target system

I want to give special thanks to BC Target Sports for some funding earlier this year. That money went directly to helping purchase my flight for this Munich & Maribor trip. Thank you! Also would like to send a thank you out to Roy and Jeff at SIUS and Harvey at AGP! Thanks guys!

Saturday, March 29, 2014

My best finish at a World Cup event!

I shot my best World Cup score to date at the USA stop of the 2014 ISSF World Cup series. My 565 is above the Olympic MQS but low compared to the rest of the field here. In order to place in the top 8 to make Finals you needed to shoot a 582 or higher -- to give some Canada perspective you need to tie the Canadian National 10m record to make the cut.

I started out strong on my first 30 shots but I also burned through a lot of my time to do that. Shots 31-48 I felt the pressure of time ticking away and I let my performance slip a bit. Thanks to the SIUS electronic scoring you can see all all of my shots from the entire match here and complete results can be found on the ISSF website.

Two months for me to improve on my pacing and mental strategy to get ready for the World Cups in Munich, Germany and Maribor, Slovenia in June.

Also got to meet 1976 Olympic gold medalist Lanny Bassham today! Awesome!


Monday, January 20, 2014

Looking forward to 2014

It's been awhile since I've posted an update here and I figured with 2014 off to a great start, I better get some news on here. If all goes to plan I'll have a busy year of travelling to various shooting competitions all over the place. Awesome!

First up... some events in Canada:

Then as a member of the National Development Team representing Canada on the 2014 ISSF World Cup Tour. The first stop will be held on March 26-April 3 at Fort Benning, USA - more information can be found on the ISSF website calendar.


The ranges they have at Fort Benning for ISSF competitions are excellent, definitely some of the best I've been to in North America. I've competed there twice in the past already (2011 USA Fall Selection & 2013 USA Nationals) so that will be an advantage going into that competition.

After that ISSF World Cup, I've got limited travel planned until June when I'm hoping to get to the back to back World Cup events happening in Munich and Maribor. Not many details are up online for those two events yet though.

Next post will have details on the three 'local' shooting clubs I train at!

For more frequent (and often tech or sports related) updates follow me on Twitter at @alharding.

Monday, May 28, 2012

Competing at Milan and Munich World Cups

I'm at Munich airport waiting for my flight to Frankfurt and figured I would use this time to get a blog post submitted. Competing at World Cups is a different experience than competing back home at Provincial and National competitions. Now that I've attended 2 back to back World Cup events I'm coming home with experience and knowledge about what it takes to compete at this level.

It's amazing to watch some of the top shooters who shoot 10 after 10 after 10 after 10 etc etc in an almost machine-like precision. It's awesome.

Panoramic taken from my phone showing the 100 position 10m range in Munich
Click for full size version

For the 50m event I did better in Munich than I did the week before in Milan. I know I'll improve more too once I make some modifications to the gun's grip. I found 2 trouble spots on the grip, which after raising and re-raising my arm may times during the match, caused some pain. I was hoping to get my grip worked on in Munich by one of the vendors but they booked up their appointments quickly.

In the 10m event, I shot better in Milan than I did in Munich. I started out strong but towards the end of the event I was having trouble with the trigger on my Steyr which resulted in a lower score than I would have liked.

Mentally, I know there are some things I'll need to work on. I could have spent more time preparing for what it would be like shooting next to guys who shoot extremely well. As well as just the overall experience and the kind of scores that would be shot. I knew they would be high, but it's different when you watch someone shoot at and near World Record levels.

All in all, it was a great trip and experience and I'm super happy and grateful I was able to attend and be part of Team Canada. Those were the last two stops on the ISSF World circuit until 2013... now I gotta get back to Vancouver, back to the range, make some modifications to my Pardini and Steyr and shoot more 10s! :)

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Arrived in Munich

Arrived in Munich yesterday after travelling up from Milan. Always a bit of a paperwork process flying out of airports with shooting equipment... but we made it!

The Munich shooting range is pretty incredible and it makes me think that Munich is basically the center of the Olympic shooting universe. There are vendors all over the place here to fix equipment and sell you lots of stuff. This morning got through equipment check, with no line-up... awesome!

My gear ready to be checked through Equipment Control

I had my ammo tested by H&N and found that my shot group was too big, so then I took my gun over to the Steyr tent and had it serviced -- which is awesome because I always wondered if there was any 'issues' after it took a fall and hit the ground a few months ago.

After about an hour I took the gun back to the H&N tent and they re-tested it and everything was working sooooo much better. Makes me wish that this was available at the Milan World Cup last week because maybe some of those 9.9's would have been 10's. ;)

The main problem here is the number of athletes and the lack of shuttle buses to and from the range to the various athlete hotels around Munich.

Time to find some local food!

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Results for 10m

I finished shooting the 10m event of my first World Cup and definitely found it challenging. I shot a lot of 9.9's which only count as 9 but just barely missed the 10 ring. The overall results can be found here and I finished in 78th with a score of 556.

Here is a breakdown of my 60 shots:


The first half of the match you can see my shots are spread out and I definitely attribute that to not being able to get myself settled down. The last half of the match went a lot better after I had gotten myself into a good groove. I ended with a 96 in my last 10 shots which was a great way to finish.

Definitely know what to expect now and look forward to next week in Munich. I shoot the 50m event on Saturday and will post up results.

Monday, May 14, 2012

Equipment is checked and ready!

Got to the range early today and beat the rush to get our equipment checked and verified. It got really busy later that morning!

Rifle shooters waiting in line to get their equipment checked

I'm officially competitor #1124 for this competition and can now also be found in the ISSF shooter database -- I need to update this with some info! :)

Afterwards, headed downtown for food and to check out the Duomo di Milano which was started in the 1300s! You can even go up on the roof and wander around. Win!

Standing in front of the Milan Cathedral -- free concert happening too!