Procacci hits straight in final to win GP

Italian Ugo Procacci is the winner of the Malta International Grand Prix 2003 which was organised at the weekend by the Malta Shooting Federation at its Bidnija ranges.

Procacci finished his competition stage of five 25-clay rounds at noon yesterday with 120 points. Also on that mark was Malta's Horace Micallef who on Saturday had targetted two straights to join Procacci at the top of the provisional leaderboard.

However, during the afternoon barrage it was the Italian who had the better luck as he smashed a straight, his first after five successive 24s, to finish one point better off than Micallef who collected 24 points in the final.

There were four Maltese shooters in the final. Joe Attard finished third overall on 140, Noel Attard fourth, 139, and Frans Pace sixth, 135.

Roberto Saraceno, another Italian, was fifth with 138 hits.

Noel Attard and Pace are the two selected shooters to represent Malta in the GSSE Trap competition next month.

In other Grand Prix categories, Lorenzo Gasperini (Italy) won the title for veterans, Giuseppe Cavassi was the top junior shooter while Micallef was best competitor in the local Class A.

The team competition was won by Malta's trio of Micallef, Noel Attard and Joe Attard on 354 clays. The second and third places were claimed by Italian teams on 345 and 338 respectively.

The official Grand Prix sponsors were Maltacom, BoV, the Malta Olympic Committee and the sports ministry.