Spot-on target as young Luca Peacock becomes a shooting world champ

The past year has proved to be a real shot in the arm for South African shooting with Luca Peacock becoming the country’s second world champion in the space of eight months.

Last December saw Hubert Montgomery crowned Open Super Senior world champion in Thailand.

Earlier this month, and at the other end of the scale, 21-year-old Peacock became FITASC (Fédération Internationale de Tir aux Armes Sportives de Chasse) Universal Trench world champion, an international clay target shooting division.

The world championships were staged in Avila in Spain and not only did Peacock strut his way to the individual title, he was also part of the winning men’s team along with Joubert Grobbelaar and Waldo Freese.

Peacock ruled the roost with an incredible individual tally of 198 out of a possible 200 targets hit, with Freese next best (193) and Grobbelaar (187) combining for a total of 578 out of a possible 600. That saw them holding off multiple world championship winners Australia and Italy for the gold.

There was a case for double celebration in Spain as Peacock celebrated his 21st birthday during the practice rounds ahead of the competition proper.

Clay Target Shooting Association of SA (CTSASA) president Orazio Cremona, whose son of the same name competed in shot put at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Scotland, was full of praise for the SA shooters.

“Our duty as CTSASA is to search and extract talent from our athletes, and we have done it. It’s only by encouraging, motivating, training and a good selection process that we managed to send the best shooters to world champs where we achieved world-class scores and new records.

“Our shooters trained hard and stayed disciplined. They knew that to win wouldn’t be easy. Winning at this level happens only by very small margins.”

Based in Hout Bay, Cape Town, young Peacock says he was an early starter when it comes to shooting.

“I started shooting when I was nine. My  dad bought me an air rifle and then a 0.22 calibre pistol which I caused a lot of trouble with [good trouble, that is!] on the range. Then in Grade Seven I visited my grandfather in Gqeberha and he took me onto the range with a shotgun and I’ve never looked back.

“My life pretty much revolves around it, it’s such a lot of fun, I even met my girlfriend on the trench,” he says with a smile.

Universal Trench isn’t an Olympic shooting discipline, those being Trap and Double Trap. Peacock explains: “Think of Universal Trench as being those two’s little brothers — instead of there being 15 machines throwing out clay targets there are only five!

“They throw the clays a bit slower, about 20km/h slower, but the angles, velocities, heights and trajectories are all different.”

Speeds vary from between 75-90km/h “and the clay pigeon is 11.5cm in diameter, bright orange and trying to get away from you. You really do have to have eyes like a hawk.

“When we were in Spain there was a machine measuring our visual response time and my average was between 0.56-0.75sec from the time the clay comes out until it’s shot ‘dead’,” says Peacock.

The competition format is four days of shooting with 50 targets per day, and when the smoke had cleared after regular competition Peacock and Spain’s Jose Javier Azpeitia Beristain were all square. After a 25-target shoot-off they were still tied at 24 out of 25 and went into a sudden-death mode! Peacock was on target, the Spaniard missed, and SA celebrated another world champion.

Going into the world championships, Peacock had little pressure on his shoulders, having finished fifth in the junior ranks in 2022 and this being his first event in the senior division.

“I didn’t draw any attention and really flew under the radar until day two. Coming from SA, you’re always a bit of an underdog in the shooting world.

“When the Italian team rocks up, it’s not just a shooter with a gun — they have psychologists, physiotherapists and each shooter has their own shooting coach with them. In SA that’s a luxury we don’t even think about — we didn’t even have an official manager in Spain, so I just took my best swing and it proved enough!”

Even when it comes to practising, South Africans struggle to compete. Peacock is busy with his first year of a BCom in marketing and management science in Stellenbosch and can only practice four days a week at most. That’s compared to the Italians or Australians who would shoot five to six times a week with a minimum of 100 targets a day before major competitions.

One thing Peacock does have is the perfect fit when it comes to his weapon. “My gun is a Perazzi High Tech which I got when I was in Italy for the world champs last year. I went to the factory in Brescia and had a custom-stock made. It’s a personal experience and the gunsmith measures a whole heap of things like hand size, length of pull, your pistol grip, the distance from cheek to shoulder, etc, before crafting the stock.

“So in effect you’re the only person in the world with those measurements.”

It doesn’t come cheap though and Peacock is all too aware of that. Industry sources say a top competition gun can cost anything between R180,000 to R300,000.

Ammunition is also not cheap. “I’ll go through about 100 cases of ammo a year and with competition ammo costing R2,500 a case and practice ammo about R1,800, you can see how it mounts up.”

But how can one put a price on becoming a world champion, especially given that he’s only 21 and with the shooting world being his oyster going forward?

He has a few decisions to make soon. “My goal for a long time has been to achieve what I’ve just achieved,” he says. “I was going to have a break but I really don’t have a choice but to defend that world title next year.

“For the short term, I’d like to do better locally and win a few more standard champs and national titles.”

But the Olympic disciplines are a powerful magnet and Peacock feels the pull. “Maybe down the road,” he muses. “Next year in Paris is a bit close now, I’d have to be on a plane every month to go and shoot World Cup events to qualify, but maybe 2028 in Los Angeles.”

Away from the range and the accompanying din, Peacock leads a quiet life. “Obviously a lot of my life revolves around shooting, so when I’m not shooting I’m cleaning my gun or thinking about shooting.

“I like doing things with my hands so I’m often in the garage doing woodwork or leatherwork. We also have lots of animals at home — horses, dogs, cats – so I also enjoy taking the dogs down to the beach, which is nice and relaxing.”

Peacock had best get used to all the relaxing he can cram in right now because since winning the world champs he has an enormous target on his own back until the defence of his title — with the next FITASC Universal Trench World Championships looking set for France next year.