Aedan & Alan winning 1st and 2ndin the Air Pistol competition
First day of action for the Scots at the English Smallbore Shooting Union (ESSU) was on Saturday 29th April and saw the 50m Pistols being drawn. This meant Andy Ralston, Alan Goodall & David Owen were in action. Andy is relatively inexperienced with 50m Pistol but came out with a new personal best. Both Alan & David made the final. The opposition was strong and David finished 8th in this final. Alan Goodall, continued his good form from the qualification shoot to take a very respectable 4th place.
Aeden with another successful competition in 2017
Saturday also saw Emilia Faulkner, a Development Squad member & Scottish Ladies Champion take to the 25m stage for Air Sport Pistol for the very first time. This saw her take on the British junior ladies number one shoulder to shoulder for the first time. She was using a single shot pistol for this and this itself makes it just a little harder come the rapid fire section of the competition. Still, even after missing one shot in the rapid-fire section, she managed a strong 543. Well done!!
Sunday 30th April saw the air pistols in action. Aedan Evans, Alan Goodall, Andy Ralston, David Owen & Emilia Faulkner were all shooting. Emilia, for the Junior Ladies was at Bisley for the first time and she was shooting against ladies & Junior Ladies with many more years experience than she has. This was an excellent shoot by her and still managed to shoot well against her average
Now on to the men, Andy Ralston with a steady shoot which saw 15 inner tens landing mid table alongside David with a mid table finish. Both Aedan and Alan making the final. Worth noting Aedan finishing on a 573 which is yet another Gold Coast 2018 qualifier for him and taking first place in the Junior Men's and 3rd in the Men's competition overall, losing out to Kristian & Waldek by only 3 inner tens. This was a fantastic result for Scottish shooting!
Onto the final and this saw Aedan & Alan shooting against some of the best shooters in the UK. Kristian Callaghan, Adrian Syms & Waldek Mickiewicz being the most notable shooters in the line-up. This didn’t faze either of the Scottish shooters with Alan taking an impressive second, after a difficult final that saw his target malfunction and meant him having to move lanes, and Aedan taking first with a shoot that smashed his previous UK finals record. This score, 241.6, if shot in an ISSF event would have been a world record!
Well done to everyone who took part at the ESSU with another solid performance by Scotland.