KUWAIT CITY, Dec 8: Kuwait clinched the overall title in the 1st Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Police Shooting Championship with a remarkable performance which saw them dominate two of the three categories. Kuwait took the top spot after collecting seven medals — four gold, one silver and two bronze, while United Arab Emirates (UAE) finished second with two gold, one silver and two bronze. Saudi Arabia took third place with four medals—all silver. The Chairman of the Organizing Committee, Sheikh Ahmad Nawaf Al Sabah, said the tournament had achieved its goals, the most important being to bring together all brothers in one place. He also thanked all the participating teams and heads of delegations.

The championship, which was held at the Mayadeen Shooting Complex in Sabhan and involved teams representing the GCC interior ministries, was stretched over three days with the last event being held on Wednesday. The championship was contested by police teams from all the six GCC states — Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait as the host country. These countries were all represented by large contingents with the competition stretched over 3 categories — Precision, Tactical and Rifle. In each of these categories, these countries were represented by six of their premium gunslingers with two shooters in each event signing up for the group competition while the other four competed in the individual section.

Once the two members had been registered as a group they could not be replaced by the other shooters in case they collected a lower score in each event. The organizers strictly enforced these conditions. The gunslingers in the group category were also allowed to compete in the individual category. These gunmen did not have to shoot again in the individual competition of the Precision and Rifle categories because the scores they collected in the group event were counted towards the individual event. Only the other four gunmen had to take to the range. They had, however, to shoot again in the individual category of the Tactical event.
United Arab Emirates (UAE) had started off the competition on an excellent note on the first day by capturing the Precision titles in both the classes. In group competition they were represented by Ameen Muthana Taher and Saif Salem Al Farisi but Al Farisi also went on to bag the individual title.

Kuwait fought back on the second day of the competition to bag two golds in Tactical shooting with a total domination of both categories. In the Group event they were represented by Abdulaziz Al Munaya and Ali Abbas while one of their youngest, yet one of the outstanding gunslingers, Abdullah Al Kandari walked home with the crown in the individual class.
With two golds in their bag, Kuwait could not be stopped from taking the overall title because they stretched their domination into the third day of the event with Abdullah Al Kandari joining hands with Ali Dashti to take the gold in the group section of the Rifle category.
Al Kandari showed his class again with an outstanding performance in the individual Rifle section to collect his second gold of the tournament to give Kuwait a total of four top places and with it the overall championship.
The tournament was a huge success for which the credit must go to Colonel Waleed Al Shehab who led a very reliable organizing team with the support of Gen. Ahmed Al Saleem, the Director of the Mayadeen Shooting Complex, while the dedicated Range Officers made sure that the competition ran very smoothly.

Precision
The Precision event which was held on the 1st day of competition saw two targets set at 15 meters and with one hand the shooters had to place 5 bullets in each target within one minute.
The United Arab Emirates team showed some real class to take the title in both the sections of this competition.
In the group category, Saif Salem Farisi was a model of accuracy as he collected a maximum of 50 points in his first shoot and the same number in his second to get a maximum of 100 points and the best for the day.He was well supported by Ameen Muthana Taher who managed 48 points in his first shoot and the same number in the second. The group total of 196 points was far ahead of the others to give UAE the gold.
The silver medal was taken by Saudi Arabia with A’ata’Allah Nida’s Al Enizi getting 49 points in his first shoot and the same number in the second. He got some good support from Mohammed Chokan Al Enizi who collected 49 points in his first shoot but could manage only 44 points in the second to give them a total of 191 points.

Kuwait made sure that they finished on the medals table when they clinched the bronze. Abdulaziz Mohammad Al Munaya shot very well to collect 47 points in his first shoot and the same number in the second while Ali Abdulaziz Abbas was excellent in his first shoot which brought him 48 points but could only manage 41 in the second for a combined total of 183.
The individual section of this category was also dominated by UAE as they took the gold and bronze medals with Saudi Arabia taking home the silver.
UAE’s Saif Salem Farisi’s maximum of 50 points each in both his shoots for a total of 100 in the group event also gave him the top spot in the individual section. Saudi Arabia’s A’ata’Allah Nida’s Al Enizi took the silver when his total of 98 in the group event could not be bettered by the others. UAE’s Ameen Muthana Taher took the bronze with his total of 96.
For Kuwait, Abdulaziz Mohammad Al Munaya took 5th place with his total of 94 while Ali Abdulaziz Abbas was 10th with 89 points, Ali Abdullah Al Kandari 11th with 89, Ali Ahmad Dashti 16th with 86 points, Abdullah Al Kandari 26th with 79 points and Omar Al Ansari 27th with 77 points.

Tactical shooting
The Tactical shooting event was held on the 2nd day of the competition and Kuwait made sure that they dominated the category with an excellent performance coming from all their shooters in both sections of the event.
This shoot was really tough as the scenario demanded that the shooters be both fast and accurate.
At the start of the shoot, the competitors were required to have the gun in Condition 2 — magazine inserted but the weapon not racked and inside the holster.
The shooters’ starting position was in the middle of the range, inside a box, and upon an audible signal they were required to run to their left where there was a low fence from where they had to engage two targets — one with a head shot and the other a hard-covered object with a very small target area — at about 10 and 12 meters.


They were then required to move to the extreme right where there were two targets — a hard-covered one with a no-shoot object overlapping half the target — which had to be engaged through a tyre from a kneeling position and from behind a fence.These targets were at about 10-12 meters.
The gunslingers had then to move to the center where there were 3 ports — three tall barricades that had small holes to shoot through and were split by a net. The first port had two targets, half hidden by no-shoot objects at about 10-12 meters. The second port had two targets placed at about 15 meters and the third and last port had two objects — one of which was a no-shoot target, overlapping half of the target, while the other was another hard-covered target with a designated engagement area.
All three targets had to be engaged in double tap. If the gunslingers hit the no-shoot objects or the shaded part of the hard-covered target, that particular was to be considered a miss.
Kuwait took the gold in the group category when Abdulaziz Al Munaya got a score of 100 and Ali Abbas 78.8578 for a total of 178.8578 which was so good that the second placed team was far off in the distance and in fact not able to offer any competition.
UAE took the silver when Haitham Ebrahim collected 98.8800 points and his partner Ahmad Ali Nasser failed to get off the mark. They were lucky that one of them shot well and the other countries did not have a good day on the range.

Saudi Arabia took the bronze when Mohammad Al Enizi collected 49.9998 points and Mohammad Al Qatani 33.8313 for a total of 83.8311 points.
In the individual section of the same category, Kuwait swept the board by collecting all the three medals while their other shooters also placed well.
Kuwait’s Abdullah Al Kandari, who did not take part in the group competition, showed how things should be done by taking the individual gold with a maximum of 100 points.
Abdulaziz Al Munaya, who had collected a maximum of 100 points in the group event, was unable to repeat the same performance in the individual category and had to be content with the silver medal after collecting 93.7500 points.
Omar Al Ansari made sure of climbing onto the winners podium when he collected the bronze medal for Kuwait with a score of 82.9737.
Kuwait’s other shooters also did well with Ali Al Kandari finishing 5th with 66.1724 points while Ali Abbas was 8th with 44.4816 points and Ali Dashti 13th with 28.2110 points.

M16 Rifle
In the Rifle category, shooters were required to make use of an M16 with the first target set at 50 meters and with 5 bullets they were required to engage the target in 1 minute and 30 seconds while the other target was at the same distance but here they had to fire 10 bullets in 3 minutes from a standing position.
Abdullah Al Kandari and Ali Dashti collected the gold for Kuwait when both of them collected a total of 175 points. Al Kandari got 45 points in his first shoot and 48 in his second for a total of 93 while Dashti managed 39 points in the first shoot and 43 in the second for a total of 82.
Saudi Arabia took the silver medal with Abdulhadi Al Qahtani and Trad Al Enizi collecting a total of 169 points. Al Qahtani got 43 points each in both his shoots for a total of 86 while Al Enizi had 42 points in his first shoot and 41 in his second for a total of 83.

Oman took third place when Salem Bin Hamad Al-Hanae’ee and Ahmad Bin Mansour Arrawahi compiled 166 points.Al Hanae’ee had 45 points in his first shoot and 38 in the second for a total of 83 points while Arrawahi collected 38 points in the first shoot and 45 in the second to match his partner’s total of 83.
In the individual event event, Abdullah Al Kandari’s 93 points in the group event was good enough to give Kuwait the gold medal.
A’taa’Allah Al Enizi of Saudi Arabia took the silver medal with a total of 89 points while Rashid Jarallah collected the bronze for Qatar with a score of 88 points.
Among the other Kuwait shooters Omar Al Ansari was 8th with 86 points, Ali Dashti 17th with 82 points, Ali Abbas 18th with 82 points, Abdulaziz Al Munaya 19th with 82 points and Ali Al Kandari 25th with 76 points.