The shotgun World Cup has been fired in Cairo. Ghada Abdel-Kader reports on the shooting spree The shotgun World Cup from 1-10 May is currently being held at the new premises of the Shooting Club in the 6th of October City. All together, 290 shooters representing 44 countries are participating in the skeet, trap and double trap -- Algeria, Angola, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bahrain, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Spain, Finland, Great Britain, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Libya, Lebanon, Lithuania, Morocco, Pakistan, Norway, Oman, Malta, Qatar, South Africa, Russia, Senegal, Slovenia, San Marino, Sudan, Sweden, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, the US, Ukraine, and Egypt the host country. The Egyptian team is represented by 16 shooters. In trap, the women's shooters are Suzan Gaber, Norhan El-Menyawi, Fatma Ismail, Mai Adel and Manal Gaafar. Abdel-Aziz Mahilbh, Karim Abdel-Kader, Ahmed Zaher, Ahmed Shafiq and Hassan El-Quree'i make up the men's team. In skeet, the men are Amr Suqar, Mohamed El-Sharqawi, Hatem kamal, Franco Donato and Azami Mahilbh. Mona El-Hawari is the only female shooter. Suzan Gaber, an English literature major in Alexandria University, is also a national karate champion for the past six years. It was her first time in a world cup. "It's a good opportunity for me and my teammates to gain experience." Fatma Ismail, in the college of medicine, likes sports not practiced by the majority. "I was skeet shooting since I was 14 but didn't practice regularly. Afterwards, I became a trap shooter for three years. I started achieving results which encouraged me to continue." "I inherited my passion for shooting from my grandfather and father," Mohamed Suqar said. "All my family shoots and give me all the support I need. I take advantage of their previous experience." Added Norhan El-Menyawi: "I've been practicing trap shooting for three years. I took it from my family. My father and my brother were shooters, too." Egypt's coach Lloyd Woodhouse said the championship was a starting point. "It is the first step in exposure and gaining experience for our shooters. The rest of the year, the team will participate in many competitions, world cups and Mediterranean events. "To be a world class shooter takes 10 to 15 years of training. I tried to find a better way. This was my goal that I laid out with my assistant coaches. We developed modern coaching and training techniques to help the shooter reach a high level in a very short time. Now I think any beginner shooter, instead of spending 15 years, needs only one or two years. We compressed the training level down to a smaller time frame," Woodhouse explained. "Biomechanics is how human beings respond. Shooters need two changes: behavior change is how to respond to things. Mental change is retraining shooters and getting out all the 'bad pictures' (passive images) out from their heads. It's a kind of training we want our shooters to do," Woodhouse added. "The shooters I have now in Egypt are very talented. The young women are excelling a lot faster than what I expected. Unfortunately, I have been with the national team only 27 days. We went to Alexandria to be trained for four days. I worked with individuals on a shooting range which was completed only a week ago. But we are way down the path for success. We can do a lot better in the future. It's just a matter of time." Woodhouse was a shotgun coach of the US national team for 23 years. He guided the US to more than 430 medals in the shotgun disciplines of trap, double trap and skeet. That includes 127 individual gold medals, 110 individual silver medals, 101 individual bronze and countless team medals, both in junior and open events. The highlight of his coaching career came when his athletes won gold, silver and bronze medals at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. As a result, he was named the USA Shooting Coach of the Year in 1996, and again in 1999, 2000 and 2003. His shooters also won bronze medals at the 2000 Olympic Games in Australia and a gold medal in Greece in 2004 and the 2008 Olympics in Beijing where he topped the 1996 Olympic medal count. "The policy of the newly elected administrative board is to choose young shooters in order to continue our drive to the Olympic Games in London 2012. The aim of this championship isn't winning medals but earning Olympic quota places for our shooters," said Medhat Wahdan, president of the Egyptian Shooting Federation and International Shooting Sport Federation vice- president. "This championship is the first opportunity for our shooters to gain experience and get them ready for the followings steps. The federation is doing its best in providing the coach and shooters with all their needs, from training to travelling abroad," Wahdan added.
