After some success in the European Shotgun Championships in Larnaca, Cyprus, the 25m/50m crew went to Wroclaw, Poland, in search of more European Championship success and perhaps even an Olympic quota spot.
With the top two qualifying (and the stipulation that these two can’t be from the same country) a place for their NOC at the games, four events had their places up for grabs. Firstly, in the Men’s 50m Rifle 3 Positions, Dean Bale and Michael Stephen Bargeron were on the start list for GB. Such was the length of that list that an extra pre-qualifying round, the Elimination Relay, was held in order to get a final list of 36 qualifiers. Bale took part in the first relay, coming 24th with a score of 582-27x (out of 600), while Bargeron’s 585-34x earned him 17th in the second relay. This was enough for Bargeron to advance, but here they would be whittled down to eight, and this was too big a step: 583 hits earned him 32nd place.
Over to the Rapid Fire Pistol, and Sam William Gowin and Kristian Michael Smeeton Callaghan represented Great Britain. With the top eight qualifying, Gowin hit an impressive 585-18x to snag fourth, while Callaghan’s 559 earned him 33rd (39 entered in total). Gowin went through to the ranking round, joined by Oliver Geis of Germany, Massimo Spinella of Italy, and Martin Strnad of the Czech Republic. With four series of five shots each, the top two would advance. While Gowin started decently, hitting three in the first series, just one in the next series would be a blip too big to recover from, and Gowin finished in third with eleven. Geis (eighteen) was dominant, Strnad (fourteen) was consistent, but Gowin wasn’t the only one to struggle and finished ahead of Spinella on ten. I think a good performance from the soldier overall and certainly not a wasted trip to Poland.
On the women’s side, we’ll start once again with the 50m Rifle 3 Positions, where we were represented by Katie Gleeson and Seonaid McIntosh. 583 earned Gleeson 17th in the first elimination relay, while McIntosh was 9th in the second one with a 588-30x: tied for eighth with Israel’s Tal Engler, and level on the first tiebreak with a Standing score of 193, the Prone score of 199-198 went to the Israeli. Both made qualifying, but McIntosh came 18th with 586-26x, while 581-24x and 33rd was what Gleeson settled for. McIntosh had a medal chance this time, so will feel somewhat disappointed to not even make the final eight. Finally, the Women’s 25m Pistol had one British representative, with Jess Liddon donning the red, white, and blue. She placed 35th in qualifying, with 571.
Overall, McIntosh was the big hope, and her performance underwhelmed, albeit the expectations weren’t too high at this championship. She will have plenty of other chances, and Gowin was a nice surprise. The next chance these athletes will get is at next month’s Rifle and Pistol World Championship in Cairo, Egypt.
GB Games 