Stay healthy everyone!

What a difference a month makes. I hope you're all staying healthy and staying optimistic about things. Keep washing your hands, social distancing, and staying home but also staying active!

I've found myself refocusing my time differently the last while. With my competition / travel calendar being postponed and cancelled I'm at home a lot more. Since returning from Europe I have been at home for more days in a row than anytime in the last 9 years or so. It's good. Good to get into some routines and developing better habits.

Also, doing things like this one colour puzzle:

Finished the Ravensburger Krypt Puzzle 🧩@RavensburgerUK @RavensburgerNA #ravensburger #puzzle #krypt pic.twitter.com/WvwoAHVC1b

— Allan Harding (@alharding) April 3, 2020

And finishing a Rubik's cube while planking:

Stay focused, stay optimistic, get in touch with friends and family and check-in on how they're doing.

Stay healthy!

Intershoot recap and what's coming up next

I'm back home now and somewhat adjusted back to Pacific time zone. Those quick trips to Europe always feel too short and definitely take some adjusting. There and back. Plus training and competing 4 days of the week while I was away is a lot. Typically going to an ISSF World Cup you would do pre-event training 1 day and competition the next day for a single event.

My first day went well with the 565/600 and missing Finals by only a few points. The following days were more of a challenge. I shot a lot of 9.9's which in 10m pistol and the integer scoring they're counted as "9" even if they are a hair width away from scoring "10".

It was great to catch up with old friends from around the world there and to meet some new ones as well!

Me and Ramon Suarez (@olympicpistol)

Me, Nikhil Kumar, and Saurabh Chaudhary (@SChaudhary2002)

The Netherlands is beautiful, I'll aim to be back for Intershoot 2021 next year! Hopefully I can stay a few more extra days!

Sun setting outside the Sherlock Holmes pub

Packed and ready to fly home!

Up next will be:

• Mar 6-8: BC Airgun Champtionships - Vancouver, Canada
• May 22-24: Canadian Airgun Grand Prix - Toronto, Canada

Then in June I'll be back in Europe for the ISSF World Cup Series stages in Munich, Germany and Baku, Azerbaijan.

Intershoot has started!

Inrtershoot is officially under way. 270 competitors at Intershoot across men's pistol & rifle and women's pistol & rifle disciplines. 3 days of competition has begun!

Open training at Intershoot

All setup for some precision shooting!

Today I shot a 565 with 22 x's. My 'x' count was the second highest out of the male pistol shooters so I'm pretty happy about that. I did have a few flyers though which dropped my score from where I should have been given the volume of 10s I was shooting. Lots of good deep 10's but have some flyers I need to work on also. The area where those two 7's landed mean I was anticipating the shot.

My 565 from the first competition complete with 22 x's

Complete scores can be found here but if the link doesn't work I have a screenshot of them from the first match below (open to make larger):

Day 1 results for men's 10m pistol

My teammate Stuart Burns finished 29th and Robert Katz finished 33rd.

Tomorrow's match starts at 4pm CET, which is late in the day so my team and I will just be taking it easy before the competition. Tomorrow's scores will also be used for the team score. Go Canada! On Saturday we shoot at 8am CET and then will do a little sightseeing before our flight Sunday morning

Arrived in the Netherlands

I arrived in the Netherlands! It was a bit hectic just getting to Amsterdam. My original flight plan was to fly at noon Sunday from Vancouver and arrive to Amsterdam Monday morning and meetup with my teammates Stuart Burns and Bob Katz. That flight got delayed however so I needed to take an earlier flight from Vancouver to Toronto to make my connection.

Outside of the Rijksmuseum

In the library at Rijksmuseum

Ship!

Plane!

Beer!

me and Stuart Burns

Standing in front of cool light up bottle display

Nice ice cold Heineken at the end of the tour

We got to Amsterdam early to be able to get adjusted for the time difference... +9 hours difference for me! Powered through most of the first day and today is our only full free day so we went and did a bit of sightseeing! Rijksmuseum, wandered around a bit, and the Heineken Experience!

Tomorrow we will check-in at the Intershoot competition and get our equipment checked, fees paid, and get some pre event training in. We compete Thursday, Friday, and Saturday this week, then fly home Sunday morning.

As always, you can follow along @alharding on Twitter and Instagram!

Stay tuned for more ...and thank you for the awesome emails!

Happy New Year!

I'm definitely late getting this post from drafts to published! ;)

Happy New Year all! I was rather quiet this past Fall due to focus on work related projects and less about shooting training. It's been a hectic year with getting let go from my job and figuring out my next chapter.

Highlights from 2019 in my Instagram best nine. Ask me about anything in the comments below!

Highlights from 2019!

It's now 2020 and lots of "stuff" is in the works. Some I can talk about now and some I will later on.

For now...  shooting!

Upcoming competitions I'll be competing and representing Canada at:

• Feb 4-6: Intershoot - The Hague, Netherlands
• Mar 6-8: BC Airgun Champtionships - Vancouver, Canada
• May 22-24: Canadian Airgun Grand Prix - Toronto, Canada
• Jun 2-9: ISSF World Cup - Munich, Germany
• Jun 22-30: ISSF World Cup - Baku, Azerbaijan
• Aug14-19: Canadian National Pistol Championships

Busy schedule filled with lots of travel. The one I am still figuring out schedule for is the Grand Prix in May as it conflicts with the BC Provincials but is also very close to the ISSF World Cup dates. Main issue is it's a lot of travel between Vancouver and Toronto. I'll connect to Munich via Toronto airport.

I'll be doing at least one blog post a month this year so stay tuned for more updates from Europe next week!

Double Gold - 50m and 10m National Pistol Champion!

Today was pretty awesome! I defended my title and took the gold in the men's 10m pistol AND 50m pistol ISSF events. Double gold at the 2019 Canadian National Pistol Championships!

I won the 50m event back in 2016 and then shifted focus away from that and back to 10m. This is my third year in a row winning the 10m event! 2017, 2018, and now 2019! Yes!

Outside the Pan Am Shooting Centre after winning the 10m event!

What it looks like before I start my 60 shot competition!

Thank you to ELEY tenex! I had this barrel tested in Munich when I was there for the ISSF World Cup.

25m event tomorrow and Tuesday and then flying home!

Arrived in Toronto for 2019 Canadian National Pistol Championships!

I got in late last night after a delayed flight. Made it to hotel around 1am. Always nice to get in a couple days early when dealing with timezone changes. It's only 3 hours from what I'm used to but it makes a difference.

Night before travel getting my equipment organized

The competition starts tomorrow so expect more updates soon!


PS: I added a form on my website also if you want to contact me. Awesome.

Spring 2019 Updates

It's been a busy couple months with training and travel. May and June I was away quite a bit with multiple stops to Toronto. The Shooting Federation of Canada's high performance team trials for the 2020 team were in May, then the ISSF World Cup stage in Munich end of May then a team training camp early June at the Pan Am Games legacy range in Cookstown, ON.

My competitor number for the 2019 HPTT

Lynda Kiejko, Allan Harding, Kim Britton, Liz Gustafson

Mark Hynes and Allan Harding

Do it!

After the high performance team trials I stopped in and shot at Target Sports Canada with Nicolas from TheGunBlog.ca. Fun times! Noisy club but great to see how many people were out and interested in target sports.

Visiting Target Sports Canada range with Nic from TheGunBlog.ca

On my way to Munich, Germany! Thanks for the upgrade Air Canada!

Competitor number for ISSF Munich World Cup stage

Lynda, Lea, Lisa, me

Team Canada out for food and drinks

The busy indoor 10m range in Munich

I stopped in to visit ELEY to test out their tenex air pellets for my Steyr evo10e air pistol.

Barrel testing ELEY tenex air in my Steyr evo10e

ELEY tenex air acquired! Let's do this!

After getting back from Munich I had a few days at home before flying back out to Toronto for a training camp. I stopped in and visited a couple ranges while there. I stopped in and met with members of Toronto Revolver Club and also stopped in and visited Silverdale Gun Club.

Visiting Toronto Revolver Club!

Shooting 25m distance at Silverdale. Beautiful day!

Then back at the high performance team training camp to train with my Team Canada teammates on their way to the 2019 Pan Am Games in Lima, Peru.

Stuart Burns and Mark Hynes shooting 10m at training camp 

I'm currently in Whitehorse, Yukon and back to training soon to get ready for the 2019 Canadian National Pistol Championships. Stay tuned!

Also find me on Twitter and Instagram as @alharding!

Testing ELEY ammunition in Canada

Last month I visited Korth Group to do some ELEY batch testing at their test range! The experience is pretty cool! I was given a tour of their facility and ranges and then they got everything ready to test. We went through 15 different ELEY lots and a couple competitor ammo which I brought in that I had been using in training and competition.

ELEY tenex for shooting 10x's!

We went through several rounds of testing over several hours until we found the one that was the most consistent with my Pardini SP RF barrel. Ultimately I ended up with some ELEY Tenex (not pistol version) that worked best. The non-pistol Tenex has a higher velocity and grouped better.

ELEY testing at 25m distance

So fun! :)

Awesome!

Next up for me is the 2019 Pan Am Games team selection match this weekend in Cookstown, Ontario. I will also be visiting Target Sports Canada range to meet up and shoot! Come by May 20th @ 2pm!

From the news:

• National champ aiming for Richmond airgun title
• Records broken at Richmond shooting competition
• One of the kids I coach: Nine-year-old rifle shooter ‘one to watch’ 

Intershoot results

I've been asked about Intershoot results and realized I haven't posted in awhile. Intershoot 2019 Netherlands results!

At The Pier in The Hague

The first match went well but I know I could have done better. There were some easy points I lost which I shouldn't have let go. It doesn't take much of a break in focus though when you're dealing with millimeters at a distance of 10m. After the first match I ended up not feeling well due to something I ate and stayed in bed a couple days only getting up to go compete and make the best of the situation.

Also got a chance to meet up with Ramon from Olympic Pistol which was pretty cool! Thank you for the t-shirt and Belgium chocolates!

Kim Britton, Ramon Suarez, and me @ Intershoot 2019

Next up are the BC Airgun Championships in Richmond, BC in a couple weeks!

Pan Am Games quota spot acquired for Canada!

At the Championship of the Americas in Guadalajara, Mexico I won the first shooting quota spot for Canada to attend the 2019 Pan Am Games in Lima, Peru this July!

First quota spot for Canada won!

Me shooting at the 2018 CAT Games in Mexico 

Updates for Fall 2018

What a busy summer it was between work and shooting. I was in Changwon, South Korea for the 52nd ISSF World Championships and just finished getting caught up on work related projects.

Shooting at the World Championships. Jongoh Jin far left would go on to make
an epic comeback and defend his World Champion title

The World Championships went well but unfortunately I had ran into some mechanical issues with my Steyr. There was an inconsistency with one of the cylinders and it wasn't shooting as accurate as it should have been. It's not something I had ever looked at or thought could be an issue. Steyr was on-site at the World Championships and they found the problem and made the adjustment and repairs.

I found some time to help out a couple Avengers in Changwon!

My attempt to make a Canadian maple leaf on my toast... looks more like a Batman logo??
What do you think? Leave a reply in the comments below.

Just me enjoying a moment at Gwangalli Beach in Busan.

Next up, I will be competing in Calgary at the end of October for the 2018 Western Canadian Airgun Championships then I'm off to Guadalajara for the 12th Championships of the Americas.