The action (or at least, the Olympic action) is over from the European Shooting Championship (10m) in Tallinn, Estonia. In all events, the top two qualified for the Olympics, respecting that those two can’t be from the same NOC and mustn’t have already qualified a place. Furthermore, qualifying an athlete in the same event for both genders would also earn a place in the mixed team competition.
In the men’s 10m air pistol, Kristian Michael Smeeton Callaghan and James Andrew John Miller went for GB. With six hundred shots, the top eight would qualify. Callaghan did best, coming twelfth with 578 hits (18x) and Miller’s 577 (24x) was enough for fourteenth. A respectable performance, but not enough to qualify for the next round.
In the 10m air rifle, it was Dean Bale that went for us. The top eight would qualify again, with sixty shots each and the maximum score being 10.9 per shot. His score of 625.4 was enough for 35th, being ahead of Hungarian Soma Richard Hammerl due to a better score in the last series. Either way this was not enough to qualify.
No British woman entered the 10m air pistol, but Katie Gleeson and Seonaid McIntosh entered the 10m air rifle. In qualification, McIntosh was top with a 632.5, while Gleeson was 58th with a 621.5, again being named ahead of Lithuanian Jurate Manke due to a better final-series score. McIntosh advanced to the ranking round. Here, after fifteen shots, those ranked 7 and 8 must withdraw, then another five until those in place 5 and 6 are gone, and another five where those ranked third and fourth are also gone. The final two advance to a gold medal match.
McIntosh led throughout, and after fifteen shots it was Swiss Chiara Leone in seventh with 153.5 and Romanian Roxana Sidi in eighth with 153.4 that were out. Five shots more and McIntosh was comfortable, with Serbian Teodora Vukojevic on 206.3 and Norwegian Jenny Stene on 205.6 in fifth and sixth. German Anna Janssen on 259.2 got bronze and Finn Emmi Hyrkas was next on 257.7. In the end, McIntosh topped the charts with 264.4 and Norwegian Jeanette Hegg Duestad was second on 262.6.
In the final, both athletes shoot one at a time: the winner gets two points, unless they are tied in which both get one point. The first to sixteen wins. While McIntosh led early on, this soon subsided and Duestad ended up winning 16-10. However, the silver medal was good enough for an Olympic spot for McIntosh. The next chance to see the shooters in action is at the European Games in Poland in June and July.
GB Games 