This year the competition was held on the weekend 3rd to the 5th May. The competition is held at the Lord Roberts Centre, Bisley, Surrey. On Saturday Dean and Emily shot in the Air Rifle matches, Emily on first in the 10m Ladies Air Rifle competition. Emily shot well and earns a place in the Ladies Air Rifle final. In the ESSU competitions juniors compete with the seniors in one match, so Emily was in the top eight of the qualifying match overall. Emily’s qualifying score was 404.8 which actually saw Emily finish the qualifying match in third overall.
It was then Philippa’s turn to step up to the firing point. Philippa’s first match of the competition was 25m Sport Pistol. 25m Sport Pistol match is good to watch, as it is a mixture of 30 shots precision shooting and then 30 shots on turning targets. For this competition a five shot air pistol is used. Philippa shot a score of 530 with 8 inner tens (530-8x).
The next match for the Saturday was the 10m Men’s Air Rifle Competition in which Dean had entered. Dean shot 596.6 giving him a place in the final, but this score is a fairly low score for Dean. The main hurdle in a qualifying match under the new ISSF rules is to get into the final. In the final all scores are reset to zero, so any advantage you may have had in the qualifying match is lost.
Next, it was time for the Ladies Air Rifle Final. It had been a good qualifying match for the juniors, seeing four of the eight final places being filled by juniors. Emily excelled, finishing the final in third place with a bronze medal overall and second place in the juniors.
The final match for the day was Dean in the 10m Men’s Air Rifle Final. Once again the juniors had taken five of the eight final places. It was an exciting final, Dean was to shoot an excellent final taking the silver medal overall and first place in the juniors. This made him England Junior Air Rifle Champion for the second year running and seeing him retain the Ted Daw Junior Air Rifle Trophy.
Sunday’s first match was Philippa in the 10m Ladies Air Pistol Match. Philippa shot 327 in the qualifying match which was not enough to get her into the final.
Dean and Emily had their 50m Rifle Competitions on Sunday. This is a match in the prone position only. Prone matches are normally very well attended as many shooting athletes only shoot prone. In the ESSU competition this year saw the men have two elimination relays. Dean was in the second elimination relay, and he made it through to the qualifying match. Dean did very well in the qualifying match but unfortunately none of the juniors made it through to the final. Dean was the top junior score in the qualifying match and therefore took the England Junior Prone Rifle Champion title, with a score of 612.2. Emily had a very good shoot as she has only been shooting small-bore less than twelve months and she borrows a rifle from Braunton Target Shooting Club.
On the third and final day of the competition all pistol and air rifle competitions were over. The two matches left were 3P (three positions). The men’s match is 3 X 40 shots, first in the kneeling position then prone position and to finish in the standing position. Ladies 3P is a 3 X 20 match with the positions in the same order as the men’s. The Ladies and Men’s matches were shot concurrently.
Emily was lent another rifle from the GB Junior Rifle Squad. Martin Beard and Colin Sykes spent about two hours fitting Emily with the rifle on Sunday evening making it a long day for them. Emily would like to say once again a very big thank you to the both of them and to Larissa Sykes for coming back to help her. This made a great difference as she shot a personal best with a score of 536.
Dean shot well in the Men’s 3P match getting a score of 1114 making him fifth place in the qualifying match and a position in the final, along with two other juniors. Dean finishes the final in fourth place just outside the medals but as top junior. Dean was top junior in the ESSU Men’s 3 P match for the second year in a row. There is not a trophy for junior in the 3P match as this is only the second year that juniors have made it into the 3P finals. This obviously shows that our Great Britain Junior Rifle Squad is producing some top class athletes. Great to see all the hard work by both the juniors and the coaching staff paying off. Well done to you all.
Jack missed the competition as he has been in Romania for two weeks work experience, which is for his college course with Petroc.
