Hot shot: Birgan hits target as Australia's first world champ

By Jared Lynch
Updated November 7 2012 - 2:29pm, first published November 22 2009 - 11:30am
Damien Birgan shows the spoils of victory after winning Australia's first world sporting clay target shooting title at Laang.
Damien Birgan shows the spoils of victory after winning Australia's first world sporting clay target shooting title at Laang.

A RAINBOW sealed the win of Australia's first world sporting clay target shooting champion at Laang last night.Damien Birgan, of Brisbane, pipped 10 times world cup winner George Digweed to take out the 2009 FITASC World Sporting Clay Target Shooting Championships.As he stepped up to the dais, Australia's sports war cry "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Oi Oi," erupted from the 1000-strong crowd."It doesn't get better than this," Birgan said. "I'm pretty stoked."Light rain formed a rainbow over the Laang shooting range as Australia's national anthem bellowed from the speakers.To Birgan the win was pinnacle of a career he began 20 years ago as a wide-eyed 10-year-old.He has competed at every world championships since 1994 and said Laang was now his favourite range."Three years ago I won a national championship here."It's brilliant and the best best place I have ever shot at. "It's my favourite place now."Birgan also added a world cup, the culmination of success at three international events, to his trophy cabinet last night. He finished one shot ahead of Digweed (Great Britain) with a total of 187 out of 200. Third place was Digweed's countryman Mark Marshall, who scored 184.Competitors took aim at 50 targets each day throughout the event.Birgan said the four-day competition was an epic contest."You have to put four really good days together."The best I've ever managed to come before at a world championships is eighth. This (2009 win) is amazing."Birgan said he relied on a simple technique to reach perfection: "you just go out there and do what you can do".He was thrilled to share the victory with his family. His mother and father Maree and Mike compete as well as sister Renae and her partner Sox PilipasidisRenae couldn't contain her emotions during her brother's final shooting round yesterday."I was bawling the whole way through it," she said."I knew what he had to shoot and he knew what he had to shoot and when he shot that final pair I was ecstatic. It was a mighty effort."Renae, who first picked up a shotgun when she was 13, believed her brother's win would help boost the profile of sporting clay target shooting in Australia."It is exceptional. For an Australian to win an individual gold, hopefully it will inspire other people to take up the sport and keep it going."It's been mine and Damien's dream to win a world championship. It is something all shooters aspire to and now he has done it, which is pretty good."FITASC was formed in 1921 and controls the recognised non-Olympic shotgun shooting disciplines worldwide. The annual world championships began in 1979.

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