GBRT : South Africa 2012

Right, enough of days where we only have one or two shoots and time for the big one. Today we have no fewer than 51 rounds to count in five individual competitions - 2 and 10 at 300, 600, 800 and 900 metres, and 2 and 11 at 600m. Without going into the detail of everyone's shooting, this will therefore be a short entry, as there wasn't much time in the day for doing anything but shooting (and providing some input to the quote of the day.)

Unfortunately for everyone, the day dawned without a cloud in the sky (you'd never say that in Britain), and the prospect of shooting all day in the searing South African sunshine beckoned. As indeed it proved to be for at least the first three shoots of the day, resulting in people drinking copious quantities of water, only to find it leaking out of themselves almost as fast as they could drink it.

Thankfully, the afternoon clouded over a bit, and gave people some respite from the heat, although at the expense of some slightly trickier wind. The best of the team (otherwise known as Jon and DC) managed to only drop a couple of points for the day, but some others did get caught on the trickier details (excuses, excuses) at long range and dropped significantly more than this. The best result of the day goes to Alwyn, for a 105.13 in the morning competition at 300 and 600, earning him a top five finish, although sadly without breaking into the medal positions.

The evening (or at least what was left of it after shooting had finally finished for the day) started off with the announcement of the Great Britain Team for the RSA International Match - held tomorrow afternoon at 800 and 900m, match report to follow in Wednesday's diary. See the scores section for the team and the results.

Yesterday's exercise in shooting with someone else’s rifle reaped dividends towards the end of the day for Julie, when her bolt suffered a catastrophic malfunction at 900m and she had to shoot with someone else’s rifle for the remainder of the shoot. Proof if any was needed that these exercises are useful!

Quote of the day goes to yours truly for "if I get dehydrated, I can always suck it". There was logic to this statement - at the time anyway...