CZ Yearbook 2019 /eng

46 | | 47 How did you get into guns and sport shooting? It was my dad who introduced me to them, when I was little. Whenhewas in the army, hebe- came a national champion and then with some of his friends he established a shooting club. I think itwas in 1975andheended I STILL WANT TO BE THE BEST IN THE WORLD An interviewwith Eric Grauffel not just about joining the CZ Shooting Team and the EG-CZ Academy project The CZ Shooting Team is indeed an international squad which thanks to the superb properties of CZ guns attracts the best shooters from all over the world. The latest as- set to join the team is Eric Grauffel, a living legend from France and many-time world champion who has demonstrated his great talent in three IPSC divisions. Anybody who wants to improve in practical shooting will certainly welcome the fact that Eric’s liaison with Česká zbrojovka a.s. is not limited to taking part in competitions. sional shooting, I am quite old. (laughing) What do you consider to be your greatest success? My best success? I would say that it’s got to be my champi- on titles won all over the world, some of which I have achieved several times over. I think it is something that nobody else has repeated yet and I think it will take awhile before anyone does. And what are your immediate goals in IPSC shooting? Shooting, I expect. I need to keep shooting, I am a competi- tor so I need to shoot and com- pete. It’s like a drug for me, I just need to shoot. And regarding new goals – I don’t know yet, I have already achieved a lot. But the main goal for me is to keep taking part in main events and shoot tobe the best in theworld. I am still very competitive. But we don’t knowwhat division yet. I will try Production, Stand- ard as well as Open, a last-min- ute call is also an option. We will see what is best. I like the idea of the last-minute decision, it kind of keeps things spicy. How and when did you get into CZ guns? Well, January 1 st 2019 – I am just starting with them. We are go- ing to work on a mutual pro- ject, we have in mind a kind of a shooting academy. Also, I will be involved in the development of a new gun for the Standard and Open divisions. Working with such a renowned company is a great challenge for me, as is becoming a part of such a great team and participating in sever- al projects all at the same time. That is a pretty big task but at the same time very exciting. So, you still don’t knowwhichCZ model youwill choose to shoot? I would pick all of them, a differ- ent one for each division – I like this idea. (laughing) And I also like the idea of developing new guns. I have my own shop and my own team of people. We like to develop newmodels and I thinkwe are very good at it. We like to test and actually modify whatever we can. So, we cut things down, do a bit of upgrad- ing here and there or find other solutions. We improve equip- ment, materials and put the resulting model into produc- tion. For me it is important that other people can buy whatever I use. The models are not spe- cific models made for specific shooters. They are customized but still accessible to everyone. Do you already own a CZ gun or are you still waiting for your first one? I am still waiting. We started sorting out the necessary per- mits and documentation only at the start of January 2019 so it will take a while. What has led you to collaborate withCZ?Wheredid it all begin? In a certain sense, it is only just starting now. I have always had a very good relationship with the shooters from the CZ Shooting Team, we are friends. We meet at competitions all the time, some of them I have known since they were little nippers. (laughing) I have also got on very well with the with the Team’s boss, Jakub Sondel. He would always come up to me and say: “Hey, who knows… you never know… one day… we will see…”. And then I came up with the new project of building a shooting acade- my. Jakub heard about it and in the end, we thought that it would be a great opportunity to create something bigger than just a training centre. What do you expect from this collaboration? Naturally, I expect that we will all give our best to succeed. So, we all have to pull together. My job is to make sure we make good guns, to pick the right bits to modify so as to get the best re- sult possible. And I guess Česká zbrojovka would like me to do a good job at competitions and carry on winning as well. But we must also work on the new academy which will be a great marketing tool. We will be able to make sport shooting acces- sible to the wider public and at the same time promote this bril- liant sport. I hope we will be able to get best teamof instructors in Europe as well. All that will help us promote the brand and the sport too. What I mean is that it is not just a business venture, it is muchmore than that. In what aspect do you think CZ pistols are better than the competition? They are all different. We can- not say that the gun I used today is better than another one. It is as if you compared Michael Schumacher who was with Mercedes and then he went over to Ferrari. Success is a combination of a driver and his equipment, which plays a big part too. When we are using CZ guns, we knowwe are at the top of the world. We are in the lead and losing is basi- cally not an option. So, we have a great combination of the end shooter and the equipment he or she has available. This makes for a win-win situation. And when we have great guns and great shooters, we have to find out which gun is best for each shooter. Personally, I prefer new models. For Production I will get the CZ SHADOW 2 ORANGE with the new barrel bushing which offers even better accuracy. As I have already mentioned – unfortu- nately, I am getting on a bit in this line of work, so I need a few tricks to stay sharp. (laughing) up presiding over it for about 10 years. When I was little, my par- ents both worked, I didn’t have any babysitters, I basically spent just about every weekend at the shooting range. I must have been about six, so I had access to guns and ammunition from an early age. I started shooting when I was about eight years old, so we can say that I’ve been around guns almost all my life. When did you take up IPSC shooting? Exclusively since I was about 15, so that is around 24 years now. Let’s say that in profes-