Day 7 of the GB Rifle Team tour to South Africa – and today began much like any other day on tour, awoken to beautiful sunshine, soaring temperatures and an amazing correlation between age of tourer and at what time they turn up for breakfast (I’ll leave you to figure out which way is which). Today would be the same as yesterday for the team, practice individual shoots at 300, 600, 800 and 900M. However,…
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Another day, another glorious morning in Bloemfontein. The hotel swimming pool sure does look inviting… But instead, for the GB Rifle Team, today was the first day of individual shooting, the “Freestate Championships”. Many of our training weekends were focused on team shooting format, where each firer is in a target team and assigned a dedicated wind coach. Essentially, the shooter is purely a “shooting platform” focused on one thing and one thing only –…
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The 21st March in South Africa is the “Human Rights” bank holiday, set on this date as the anniversary of the establishment of the South African Human Rights Commission. While the majority of South Africa took a well-earned day off, for the GBRT Rifle team, it was very much the opposite. It was our first day of shooting and the entire team was at breakfast, on average, a good 2 hours earlier than previous days….
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Today the team enjoyed a rest day -that is all of us except our long suffering armourer who sorted out the Under 25 team rifles, checking and re bedding where required.Toys r us might have wondered why a grown man needed play do. And of course Jackie our physio continued to try and get team backs in order. Jane, Nigel, James L ,Richard and Glyn spent an enjoyable morning strolling around the Botanic gardens. Climbing…
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After watching the England vs Ireland rugby match last night the team moved on to a late (very late for Blomfontein) dinner at a restaurant frequented often during previous tours to Blomfontein. Disappointment for most of the team, tempered by glee from Irish representation, in no way impaired the collective appetite. Therefore this morning only a few felt able to deal with a full three course breakfast at 7am, some taking advantage of a rare…
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Hmmm… what to write for a day we begin 35,000 feet in the air? After finally setting off as we entered the 18th March moods were high and the team were settling into a few drinks/trying to sleep/movie watching. We received a few admiring glances from other passengers as well, clearly impressed with the fantastically designed GB logo embroidered on our kit. Wait until you see our ties! We arrived at 8:30am into Jo-burg, to…
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Departure day dawned, with some sun and happily no rain. The organised – or holiday rich – stayed at Bisley overnight and sauntered over to the Surrey Hut for the prescribed 10am kick off for team packing. The rest of us, having negotiated the normal morning traffic delays, arrived flustered and apologetic during the course of the morning. Matt Millar, undertaking the onerous task of team baggage master, excelled, so much so that order was…
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Throughout last week an anxious GB team studied the weather forecast and the progress of Storm Doris. Trees were uprooted, lorries blown over and rearsight windage arms oiled in anticipation. Happily the forecast gales and heavy rain went elsewhere-ish. On Saturday, after a 7am roll-call at the North London Rifle Club for breakfast and a briefing by team management (less the vice-captain, whose car had broken down ten minutes from his home), we moved out…
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The dawn of a new year brings with it a whole host of things to any individual. New Year’s resolutions, plans and projects for the year. Possibly even a need to recover from a hangover. For the full-bore target rifle shooter we are still very much in the “off season”. Many competitors don’t think about picking up their rifle again until towards the end of March. The members of the 2017 GB Rifle Team to…
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We met as a team in early October where we gathered our thoughts ahead of the British winter and into early 2017…