Final Report: the top results from the IPSC European Handgun Championship 2023 in Greece

More than 1,300 shooters from over 59 nations competed at this European Championship. The number of participants alone reveals that not only Europeans competed here. The results lists include shooters from the USA, Canada, the Philippines, Jamaica and Venezuela, for example. The non-European shooters, however, were not able to join the title hunt – but in the race for the overall victory and the much-coveted President's Medals in the Level IV classification, they were nevertheless right up there. A new schedule was tried out at this year's European Championship. Whereas in the previous European Championships and World Championships shooters still shot in a half-day format, there were now a total of four shooting blocks per shooting day, two morning slots (07:30 / 10:00 am) and two afternoon slots (1:30 / 4:00 pm). In the course of this change, the respective team sizes were reduced accordingly (from 12 to 8 persons per team).

This year's European Championship was pleased to have numerous sponsors. Match sponsor CZ provided plenty of decoration on the way to the shooting stands and also contributed some medal winners. But more about that later. In the second highest sponsor category, Carl Walther entered the ring with its Shoot-Off Stages. The match consisted of four areas, each sponsored by Beretta, Shield Sights, Tanfoglio and GECO. Who else participated as a sponsor and could be visited in the corresponding vendor area can be seen here in the overview: Sponsors | 2023 European Handgun Championship (ipscmatches.org)

Besides the new schedule already mentioned above, however, other changes and corresponding decisions were made in Greece by the IPSC General Assembly. For the General Assembly, the Regional Directors met in Corinth to decide on various rule changes as well as the venues of upcoming championships. We have summarized the most important of these decisions for you in the following graphic.

From a shooter's point of view, the organization of the European Championship could be described as almost perfect. From the registration, the equipment check, the opening ceremony, the match procedure to the award ceremony, everything was perfectly organized. Certainly, there were small slip-ups here and there – for example, the marching-in of the nations at the opening ceremony was delayed by more than an hour – but in view of the logistical effort that goes hand in hand with such a large-scale enterprise, such things do not really matter. The shooting range of the Corinth Shooting Club was perfectly prepared for the event, everything was well and top maintained. Especially the stages were well prepared. All setups were created especially for the event and all running paths on the stages were delimited by clearly visible fault lines. In addition, the organizer had gravelled all shooting areas separately. Special mention should also be made of the sanitary facilities and the catering. There were several fixed toilet facilities along the entire range, which were cleaned several times a day. Some operators of outdoor shooting ranges all over Europe should take an example from this. And both at the beginning and at the end of the range, a local catering company took care of supplying the participants with drinks and food at more than moderate prices. In addition to chilled beverages of all kinds (water, soft drinks, energy drinks), various freshly prepared coffee specialties provided the necessary energy boost.

As already mentioned, everything ran smoothly and the daily workload of 6 stages was completed in no time at all with a minimum of time spent on the shooting range, so that the participants still had enough free time after the competition program. Especially for shooters with family company an advantage not to be underestimated. But also otherwise the unanimous opinion about the format was more than positive. And even if the flow of information was somewhat poor in the run-up to the event, they showed themselves from the best side on site. Any news or changes were promptly communicated on the organizer's website and the results lists of the current competitions were updated several times a day. Also – contrary to the usual practice too – the final results were published promptly after the last shot, i.e. before the award ceremony on early Friday evening.

The stages at the IPSC EM 2023 in Corinth – Simple and good. Match ammunition: GECO

A total of 24 stages with 464 rounds to be scored, divided into 4 areas, were to be completed by the participants. Two areas were located on both sides of the main stage. On each shooting day one area with 6 stages was on the program. Since each area was identical with three short stages of 12 shots, two medium stages of 24 shots and one long stage of 32 shots, all shooters could achieve a maximum of 580 points each day. This made it much easier to compare the results and to determine the intermediate scores. Although the stages were all easy to shoot, they offered a lot of variety in the target set-up and were also quite demanding from a shooting point of view in view of the numerous swinging targets, mini poppers and plates.  

What was almost completely missing, however, were options. On each stage, the starting position was predetermined and since the targets were often only visible from a specific position or through a shooting hole, there was usually only one solution. This meant that there were hardly any opportunities to make up ground by a somewhat more risky stage plan or to somehow otherwise set oneself apart by playing to one's own strengths. This can be compared with the Formula 1 circuit in Monaco with its few straights and hardly any overtaking opportunities. The stages were designed to run as smoothly as possible with short walk-through and reset times. Accordingly, one looked in vain for care-intensive targets such as movers or elaborate stage setups, where the 3-minute walk-through time might be tight. There was also no trace of classics like memory stages or jungle lanes, i.e. long stages using natural terrain. 

Our review of the IPSC European Handgun Championship 2023

Thanks to his unbroken winning streak at European and World Championships since 1998 and 1999 respectively, the exceptional French shooter Eric Grauffel is probably considered the measure of all things in IPSC handgun circles. There has never been anyone who has won more titles and Level III matches than him. Even legendary IPSC pioneer Rob "The Great One" Leatham, with his six World Championship titles won, has long been left behind by Grauffel. No wonder that Grauffel is now called "GOAT" (Greatest Of All Time) by many. Despite this, Grauffel was still hungry for victory in Corinth and left little to be desired at this European Championship, where he was once again in the hunt for the title in the Production Division with his CZ Shadow 2. He not only defended his title with a commanding 2.65% lead over Czech Michael Stepan, but also claimed the European title in the Production Division for the third time in Corinth, following his victories in Barcelos, Portugal, in 2013 and Belgrade, Serbia, in 2019. Third place went to Spain's Eduardo De Cobos Abreu. A former rival of Grauffel from their Open Division days together also managed to defend his title: Top Czech shooter Martin Kamenicek has been an enthusiastic supporter of the up-and-coming Production Optics Division from the start and immediately secured the title at his European Championship debut in Belgrade in 2019 with a clear lead of almost 8%. This year, things didn't go quite as smoothly for Kamenicek. In between, it almost looked as if Frenchman Emile Obriot would throw a spanner in the works for him. Obriot, who also shot Open before and is now sponsored by Beretta, was able to take a respectable lead on the penultimate day of the European Championship. But Kamenicek was able to turn the tide in his favor once again, closing the gap and ultimately holding his own against Obriot by a slim margin of 1.03%. Dylan Keppel from the Netherlands, who also moved from the Open Division to Production Optics, completed the podium with 97.74%. In the Open Division, however, the Czech Robin Sebo had a brilliant start-to-finish victory, as he did not relinquish the lead in the match from day 1. Second and third place went to Poland's Marcin Tausiewicz and Sebo's compatriot Miroslav Havlicek with 96.43% and 94.45% respectively. For a long time, 1911 pistols and later their double-stack derivatives set the tone in practical shooting, but CZ-style models have now largely taken the lead.

Even the former stronghold in the form of the Standard Division is increasingly shaky, which is underlined by the fact that on the podium of this European Championship, in addition to an Infinity, a CZ Tactical Sports and a Tanfoglio Limited Custom can be found – all in the major caliber .40 S&W,  of course. The title in the Standard Division was won by Italian Giacomo Bolzoni with his Tanfoglio, ahead of Czech Josef Rakusan (CZ Tactical Sports) and his compatriot Daniele Antoniotti (Infinity). In the last remaining bastion for single-stack 1911 pistols, the Classic Division, Slovenia's Robert Cernigoj had traveled to Corinth with his sights firmly set on defending the title, having finally rewarded himself with the European title in 2019 after numerous good placings. But the 2022 World Championship showed that someone else would have a say in the matter. Bartosz Szczesny from Poland shone at the World Championship in Thailand with a sensational 2nd place and since then has impressed with numerous other top placings.

Accordingly, the title fight in the Classic Division developed into a tough duel between Cernigoj and Szczesny, with the Pole finally prevailing and celebrating his first European Championship title with a lead of 1.48%. With 95.21%, the bronze medal went to the Czech Jakub Marx. It only remains for us to take a look at the active Revolver Division. Similar to Sebo in the Open Division, the Austrian Gerald Reiter took the lead early in the match and never relinquished it. With a clear lead, Reiter relegated German revolver ace Sascha Back and his compatriot Robert Kroiss to 2nd and 3rd place with 89.05% and 88.51% respectively.

In the following tables you will find the top 3 shooters in each division and category. The link to all other results can be found below at the end of this article.

TOP 3 results of the IPSC European Handgun Championship 2023 in Corinth:

You can find the complete result lists with all rankings here at ECM (iroascoring.com).

In case you haven't noticed yet: our IPSC-enthusiastic colleagues Marijan and Tanja Loch have already shared some impressions and important information for you on our social media channels – so it's worth taking a look there as well. In addition, there will soon be more interesting photos from Corinth in a gallery on our all4shooters.com Facebook page.