The Top 20 World’s Greatest Competitive Shotgunners The “Best of the Rest” 21st to 100th 80 more “most notable” great Shotgunners The following is a list of eighty more shotgun competitors that I considered eligible of being considered for my Top 20. All of them have an outstanding record in the shotgun sports. They are listed in alphabetical order; Fehaid Al-Deehani KUW Double Trap / International Trap Alexey Alipov RUS International Trap Ahmed Al-Maktoum UAE Double Trap / International Trap Abdullah Al-Rashidi KUW International Skeet Mark Arie USA American Trap / International Trap Chritophe Auvret FRA Sporting Lance Bade USA International Trap / Double Trap Deserie Baynes (fem) AUS Int.l Trap / Double Trap / Australian DTL Todd Bender USA American Skeet Andrea Benelli ITA International Skeet John Bidwell ENG Sporting Giovanni Bodini ITA Flyers Adam H Bogardus USA Flyers / American Trap Kevin Borley ENG Universal Trap Harlan Campbell Jnr USA American Trap Dan Carlisle USA Int. Skeet / International Trap / Sporting William Carver USA Flyers / Exhibition Shooting Paul Chaplow ENG British DTL Wendell Cherry USA Sporting Clays Daniele Cioni ITA International Trap Stuart Clarke ENG Sporting Clays Adrian Cousins AUS American Skeet Jorge Damme GER International Trap Svetlana Demina (fem) URS/RUS International Skeet Joe Devers USA American Trap / Flyers Danielle Dispigno ITA Double Trap Brad Dysinger USA American Trap Glenn Eller USA Double Trap Massimo Fabbrizi ITA International Trap Debra Gelisio (fem) ITA Double Trap / International Trap Kevin Gill ENG Int Trap / Double Trap / Universal Trap Luciano Giovannetti ITA International Trap Larisa Gurvich (fem) URS International Skeet Cheryl Hall (fem) ENG Sporting Vincent Hancock USA International Skeet Joe Hiestand USA American Trap Ben Husthwaite ENG Sporting William Iles AUS Australian DTL / American Trap Zachary Kienbaum USA Sporting Jon Kruger USA Sporting Josh Lakatos USA International Trap / Double Trap Beatriz Laparra (fem) ESP Sporting Duncan Lawton ENG Sporting Frank Little USA American Trap Julio Lopez Breton ESP Flyers Sandor Lumniczer HUN International Trap Donald Mackintosh AUS Flyers Nora Martin Ross (fem) USA American Trap Anthony Matarese USA Sporting / International Trap Ennio Matterelli ITA International Trap Gebben Miles USA Sporting Fred Missildine USA American Skeet Dmytro Monakov URS/UKR International Trap Phoebe Ann Moses (fem)USA Exhibition Shooting Wei Ning (female) CHN International Skeet Kaye Ohye USA American Trap Dan Orlich USA American Trap Bruno Pardini ITA Flyers Robert Paxton USA American Skeet Albano Pera ITA International Trap/ Double Trap William Perdue USA Flyers / American Skeet Satu Pusila (fem) FIN International Trap / Double Trap Arnold Reigger USA American Trap Vic Reinders USA American Trap Michel Riboulet FRA Sporting Scott Robertson USA Sporting Brit Robinson USA American Trap Bruno Rossetti FRA/ITA International Skeet Jessica Rossi (fem) ITA International Trap Galliano Rossini ITA International Trap Mickey Rouse ENG Sporting / Helice Michael Schmidt Jnr USA American Skeet / International Skeet John Shima USA American Skeet Barry Simpson ENG Sporting Roger Smith USA American Trap / Flyers Jack Sutherland AUS Flyers Daniel Texeira POR Flyers Adam Vella AUS International Trap / Double Trap Marco Venturini ITA International Trap Christine Wenzel (fem) GER International Skeet The Top 20 1. George Digweed ENG Sporting / Double Trap 2. Michael Diamond AUS International Trap / Double Trap 3. Kimberly Rhode USA Int. Skeet / Double Trap / American Skeet 4. Leo Harrison lll USA American Trap 5. Matthew Dryke USA International Skeet 6. Richard Faulds ENG Sporting / Double Trap 7. Giovanni Pellielo ITA International Trap 8. Wayne Mayes USA American Skeet 9. Michel Carrega FRA International Trap 10. Ray Stafford USA American Trap / International Trap 11. Dan Bonillas USA American Trap / Flyers 12. Ennio Falco ITA International Skeet 13. Rudy Etchen USA American Trap / Flyers / American Skeet 14. Susan Nattrass CAN Int. Trap /American Trap / Double Trap 15. James Graves USA Int. Trap / Int. Skeet / Double Trap 16. Jury Tsuranov URS International Skeet 17. Homer Clark Jnr USA Flyers / American Trap / Int. Trap 18. Miroslav Bednarik CZE International Trap 19. AJ Smith ENG Sporting 20. Shan Zhang CHN International Skeet Epilogue I hope everyone enjoyed the historical journey through some of the greatest names in the sport of competitive shotgun shooting. The competitors I have selected for my Top 20 Greatest Competitive Shotgunners are solely based on my personal opinions. I know everyone will have their own thoughts and have their views on who should make this list and where they should be ranked. I think that is perfect. I would certainly like to inspire debate so at the very least our sport’s history will be revisited. The ever-increasing access to the worldwide social media gives all of us a chance to add to the events, characters, winners and losers of our wonderful sport of shotgun shooting. What I really set out to do is to physically record some of our greatest names and events of our sport in some small detail. There will be far better qualified people than myself to add to this list at some stage and give a much greater insight into the competitors I have selected and written about. I wanted to start the ball rolling. I also know there will be competitors I did not know about or worse still I have forgotten. To those people I do apologise. It is extremely difficult to make comparisons across huge time spans such as those that this sport covers. What weight to give each discipline is also very hard to determine and what constitutes a better competitor from the same discipline, but of a different era becomes an entirely subjective decision. A Top 20 list for each specific discipline and gender would be far easier, but would be far less interesting to debate when the list is completed. The disciplines of American Trap and Skeet caused me quite a lot of heartache. There have been some truly amazing competitors in both of these events, but the fact their major titles each year are not rotated annually outside of the United States makes them somewhat less international in flavour than other clay target codes. This makes comparisons against truly world disciplines difficult. In saying that I placed both Leo Harrison lll and Wayne Mayes in my top 8 of all time because they were so incredibly talented with outstanding records. It certainly helped a competitors ranking on my list if they were multi skilled outside of just one discipline hence the reason why the final 20 is dominated by individuals that were successful “All Rounders” in more than one type of shotgun event. After looking at thousands of shooters my original list had 243 names on it that I eventually cut back to 100 and of those 100 I came up with just 20. I wrote stories on 34 competitors such was my indecision on who should make the final cut. In the end I think I have arrived with a reasonably decent cross section of outstanding competitors. All 20 are legends of our sport. Selecting on gender becomes a subjective issue also. Clearly there are some women that are just as competitive with a shotgun as their male counterparts. There are many circumstances in our shotgun history that females have been in some way discriminated against and that needs to be taken into consideration also. We have some great young competitors in our sport at present that have already established amazing records that did not make my top 20. In time their continued success will no doubt force lists like mine to be updated and rewritten. I would envisage this same list in a decade’s time would include names like Vincent Hancock, Glenn Eller and Jessica Rossi. I included the late Miroslav Bednarik in my list even though his career ended at just 24 years of age first of all because I believe he was simply brilliant and second of all out of respect. He could have gone on to be number one on my list if his life wasn’t cut so tragically short. The obvious criticism that my Top 20 list will receive is that shotgun competitors from the United States fill nearly half of it. This is largely due to the fact that the USA has by far the majority of shotgun shooters participating in the widest variety of organized competitive events. I could have easily added several more from the USA as there are the likes of Dan Carlisle, Todd Bender, Joe Hiestand at least four others that would have valid arguments to be added to my final twenty. Competitors from the USA are gradually making their presence felt in the traditionally British dominated Sporting disciplines. Future lists will no doubt reflect this. I have tried to be as diverse as possible in my selections without discriminating against gender, era, discipline or nationality. Thanks for those of you that have contributed to the many stories when I was in the final stages of putting this list together. It is difficult at times to differentiate between “myths” and “legends” as distinct from actual facts. Some disciplines keep records far better than others so I hope I have done justice to the twenty competitors that I have selected through the stories I have written. Once again “The Top 20 of the World’s Greatest Competitive Shotgunners” is only my opinion. Feel free to add your stories and memories to the debate, but please don’t take any of my writings personally. Russell Mark August 2014
Posted on: Sun, 10 Aug 2014 18:44:52 +0000
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