The city of Nijmegen, the Netherlands, was the venue of the 24th Lt-Kol Schut Trofee shootin competition held in July this year. Besides the team for the University of Defence, another 63 teams coming from Belgium, Denmark, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands and other countries started there.

The team that represented the University of Defence colours included Sgt. Vladimir Zraly, SSgt Katerina Lustigova, Sgt. Pavel Burda and Mr. Radek Nedoma. The four events that formed the competition were distributed within two days. On the first day morning we familiarised with GLOCK 17 pistol used during the entire competition and went for individual pistol event consisting of 4x6 shots. The first round was in sitting position supported in 20 seconds at the distance of 25 m, followed by standing in 20 seconds at 20 m, then kneeling in 15 seconds and, eventually, standing in 12 seconds at 15 m with varying targets. We made out really well as Sgt. Pavel Burda finished 2nd, Radek Nedoma third and we should note the fourth place for Ssgt. Katerina Lustigova.

The next event was named "Falling Plates". In fact, it was pistol shooting at hanging clay targets ("pigeons") used for shotgun shooting. It was based on shoot-off principle while the faster of two teams going to the next round. Unfortunately, we were knocked out in the second rounds failing in resuming the position of last year winning team for the University of Defence.

The next day started with the third event, which was pistol shooting in three rounds. Each round consisted of 3x10 shots standing from 25 m, while the first one was in 3 minutes and the next ones in 3 seconds with 5-second pauses followed in 20 seconds at various targets. The fourth event was Diemaco C8 rifle shooting. We were shooting ten shots in each of the three rounds at a special target from the distance of 100 m, 2x prone in 2 minutes and then 30 seconds and 1x standing in 1 minut.

With great pleasure we attended the late afternoon review meeting and winners ceremony. Three times we could hear "University of Defence, Brno, Czech Republic". One for Sgt. Pavel Burda's 2nd place cup and another for Radek Nedoma's 3rd place in the Friday pistol event and the last one was for SSgt. Katerina Lustigova's 2nd place in overall women standings (you can see her in the middle in the picture). All what our effort on Saturday did was the 6th place in the final standings. We left in contended mood though our results did not make up the last year. We had our hearts warmed with the feeling of acquitting ourselves not so bad and representing well our University of Defence and the Army of the Czech Republic on international scene.

Text and photo: Sgt. Vladimir Zraly