CyprusVista

The Cyprus Olympic team for the forthcoming Beijing games will be led by skeet shooter Georgios Achilleos. Achilleos is the world champion at the sport, and is the island’s best medal hope. Marcos Baghdatis, a finalist in the 2006 Australian Open of the same sport, is also on the team. Cyprus has a good record in the sport; the Junior Men’s Team recently set a new world record of 356, achieved in Cyprus on July 9, 2008 at the European Championships.

Skeet shooting is one of three types of competitive shotgun shooting sports, the others being trap shooting and sporting clays (or clay pigeons). Competitors shoot at clay disks hurled into the air at various angles within a field of 180 degrees. In Olympic skeet shooting, the clay discs are 100mm in diameter, smaller than the average dinner plate, and just 25 mm thick. Hitting them takes a great deal of skill, timing and mental awareness, not to mention accuracy with a double-barreled shotgun or similar.

International skeet shooting has been an Olympic sport since 1968. Such is the popularity of the sport in Cyprus that there are five shooting clubs, including the Nicosia club with its Olympic shooting range. If you would like to shoot while on your holiday in Cyprus, you can discover more at the Cyprus Shooting Sport Federation website at cssf-shooting.org.

And finally… When the sport was first invented back in 1915, it was known as clock shooting. The original USA course involved traps that shot across a complete circle, but this had to stop when a chicken farm was set up next door to the original range…

Photo of skeet shooting by maverick2003 at flickr.com

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With soaring temperatures in Cyprus this week, one person definitely feeling the heat is Kyriakos Kyrrou from the Cyprus water department. The problems with the supply of water shipped from Greece and brought to Limassol via on offshore pipeline continues, with an air bubble blocking the pipe and causing a shut-down that may last until Sunday.

Limassol needs the first batch of over 8million cubic metres of water due to be shipped from Greece - and needs it fast. The city’s reservoir has only 800,000 cubic metres of water remaining to supply this busy holiday destination, which normally uses 45,000 cubic metres of water a day. The authorities are currently investigating diverting some of the output from the country’s two desalination plants, which produce 100,000 cubic metres of water a day, from Nicosia to Limassol.

Meanwhile, North Cyprus has been given the green light for a 110km water pipeline from Turkey. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated that; “The project should be completed at the latest within three years beginning in June next year (2009). The government has given the necessary instructions to the environment ministry so the project can be finalised.”

Up to 80 kms of the new pipeline will run under the sea from the Turkish coast to North Cyprus, transporting up to 75million cubic metres per year. The pipeline, and similar water shipping schemes to the current south Cyprus arrangement have been under discussion for several years in North Cyprus.

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If you consider dancing until dawn in a Cyprus nightclub a major feat of endurance, spare a thought for DJ George Papapetrou, aka DJ Gee Papa. From Tuesday to Saturday this week, he’ll be making an attempt on the world record for the longest DJ set ever played. The record is currently held by a Mexican DJ, who played for 88 hours non-stop, which makes a foam-fuelled rave in Ayia Napa seem like a couple of hours at the school disco.

Gee Papa thought he’d broken the record last year by playing for 103 hours at the Nautical Club in Limassol. Unfortunately, the Guinness Book of Records did not recognise his marathon set, so this year the world-famous book has sent representatives to monitor this latest record attempt.

Gee Papa has some influential backers for this year’s attempt, including ANT1 TV, the Nicosia Municipal Council and the Greek Embassy in Cyprus. He’ll start mixing the first of 2,000 or so songs at the Dot Club in Nicosia on Tuesday, and will play on regardless, whether he has an audience or not. Gee Papa is not allowed to play the same track more than twice in any four hours, so he needs to keep his mind on his tracks at all times.

Gee Papa says he has been training for the event by staying awake for up to 37 hours, taking a quick sleep, and then staying up for another 37 hours straight. During the record attempt, however, he is allowed only one five minute break per hour, during which the DJ plans to take quick showers to refresh himself. His game plan also involves limited food intake and high energy drinks to keep his stamina up.

If you would like to support Gee Papa during your clubbing holiday in Cyprus, entry to watch a genuine world record attempt in action at the Dot Club will cost you Euro10 from 10pm to 5am, and free at other times. And how will the DJ feel after his five exhausting days? Chances are, he might have wished he’d followed his other passion in life, football, and stuck with just 90 minutes instead!

Popularity: 20% [?]