The morning of the 24th was an early start for the GB Rifle Team. A VERY early start. Leaving the hotel at 6:30am to get to the range was tough for some but why did we decide to leave this early? Today was opening ceremony – so we would all be in attendance for the flag raising before shooting commenced.
Australia, Canada, USA and GB, as well as a large number of South Africans were present for the ceremony – highlighting how important the Australia match (which is being competed for on Monday) is to the target rifle world, and also the depth of the competition we face. This was not lost on any of the team as we approached, steely faced, 300M for our first competition.
The much hyped and broadcast (on our social media pages), triple threat match between the North London Rifle Club, captained by Jane Messer, the English XX, captained by Tom Rylands, and the Surrey RA, captained by Toby Raincock, took place at 300M and 600M for the “Hamilton Cup” competition. Conditions were the same as previous days, very hot with sporadic cloud cover. The game was on.
Relatively calm conditions were in order for the morning, but a few off shots here and there lead to scores not up to our high standards. Nevertheless, after the match was settled it was the North London who came 3rd with a score of 620 with 65 V-bulls out of 630.126 and the Surrey RA claiming the first bit of silverware, with a first place score of 623.85.
A good start.
An interesting new rule, shared with teams on the morning of the match, was the requirement to submit plot cards to support South African selection for the upcoming team matches. All teams. The GB team were left somewhat bemused at the potential need to decide whether or not to accept a place in an SA team, should the offer be extended.
The teams dutifully transposed our shoots onto the provided cards and the management made the executive decision to join the Australians in a team practice alongside for Friday afternoon and Saturday morning, thus withdrawing from the Rhodes and Dewar competitions.
A bit of adjusting of the firing order (ie – which shooters fire on which targets and when in a team format), and the 3 teams became 1 for our 800M and 900M practice.
Conditions got a lot trickier here, with the entire coaching team having to work extremely hard to get on top of the wind. Nevertheless, scores got a lot better, and a notable and highly impressive performance from Parag Patel, who scored 255 with 30 v out of 255 with 40v, an incredible performance considering the conditions the team faced today,
Tomorrow, the team will have a final team practice in the morning (again at 800M and 900M), then the individual South African “Grand Aggregate” (i.e. the main individual aggregate of competitions) will take place in the afternoon, continuing for the rest of the week.
The team are really starting to hit their stride…
#GBRTSA17
PS On the topic of team buses, as well as a fully charged battery, and as well as petrol, and as well as the money to pay for that petrol… also need keys to work. Unfortunately a lot of these modern vehicles have an “auto lock” feature on them, which can be pretty problematic if you have misplaced your keys somewhere… specific. This diarist will say no more on this!
Credit to Parag’s Coach? Yes, I know I can look it up, but you get my point!