THE sleepy farming community of Laang will go off with a bang next year when it hosts the FITASC World Sporting Clay Shooting Championships.The seven-day titles are set to be held at the Laang Range from November 16 to 22, 2009, with more than 600 competitors from 23 countries.Laang successfully hosted the 2006 national titles, attracting a record of more than 325 competitors.It helped the Warrnambool branch of the Sporting Shooters Association of Australia (SSAA) gain endorsement from the Federation Internationale De Tir Aux Armes Sportives De Chasse, through the Field and Game Federation of Australia, to secure the championships at its Laang range.Event marketing co-ordinator Mal Price, who is a Warrnambool branch member, said the FITASC championships offered an opportunity to showcase a great part of Victoria on an international stage during the competition and this year at the 2008 World Championships in Cyprus.A Warrnambool delegation will be sent to Cyprus later this year to promote the event, as well as the region's natural features to encourage participants and tourists to south-west Victoria for the 2009 event."Our club, through the successful staging of the national carnival, clearly indicated we had the experience and personnel to run a world-class event," Price said. "It also recognises the fact that we have world-class targets."We've accepted it with great delight because it is a major coup for the club."Price said the SSAA Warrnambool branch had 350 members throughout the south-west region. The 2009 event at Laang marks the return of the world titles to Australia after 15 years. It was held in Geelong in 1988 and Mt Gambier in 1994. FITASC was formed in 1921 and controls the recognised non-Olympic shotgun shooting disciplines worldwide. World championships in sporting clay target shooting began in 1979 in Lisbon and are conducted each year in a different country.The event will see a huge increase in international visitors to south-west Victoria, with about 1000 delegates expected to travel to Australia - with a major potential spin-off for tourism regionally and nationally. Shipwreck Coast Tourism chief executive officer Carole Reid said economic indicators predicted a potential injection of more than $1.11 million into the local economy just from the participants.An opening ceremony will be held on November 17, 2009. National teams from all the competing countries will march through the streets of Warrnambool to the Civic Green. The first three days of the titles are for practice, before four days of competition.Individual and team champions are decided in open, women, junior, veterans and super veteran categories.