6 Nations Shooting Championship - Luxembourg - June 2006
"Kelly's Heroes return as Golden Boys"
For the first time in its 15 year history, organizers of the 6 Nations
championship decided to invite teams of development clay shooters from
the Olympic skeet and trap disciplines to compete along side rifle,
pistol and air gun shooters.
This year the championships were hosted by Luxembourg.
Wales were asked to send 4 clay shooters from each discipline, but on
arrival found that the teams consisted of 3 shooters, leaving 1 as a
reserve and unable to shoot in the Finals. The fairest method was to
draw from a hat which was subsequently done.
On to the shoot, which was held in a little village just inside the
French border, in Differdrange, in what can only be described as
blisteringly hot weather.
The competition took the form of 125 targets, 75 shot on Saturday
with 50 and a 25 final shot on Sunday.
At the end of the first day the skeet leader board had Frank Best,
twice German Olympian leading with Welshmen Julian Jeremy and Trevor
Rands in 3rd and 4th places respectively.
The Trap team saw Welshman Gareth "Dougie" Morgan lying joint
first and young Scott "Ronnie" Morgan in 3rd place. Welsh
shooters Tony Kelly and Ian Belcher took the next few places.
So to the final day, Gareth Morgan took a convincing lead to secure
his place with Scott Morgan taking 2nd. Kelly and Belcher were
joint 6th but unfortunately it was Ian's name that was drawn as reserve
so took no further part.
A 25 single barrel final saw Gareth take the individual Gold and Scott
the Silver, with Tony shooting a personal best of 19ex 25 in single
barrel shoot-offs. The Welsh Trap Team also took the Team Gold medal.
In the skeet competition Frank Best was running away at the head of the
leaderboard with 49ex50 with Claude Weber of Luxembourg in 2nd place.
3rd place was Julian Jeremy, but with a cruel twist it was Julian's name
that was drawn out as reserve. This handed the bronze medal to Welsh
shooter Richard Stepney. Best went on to shoot a straight in the final
with Richard Stepney nearest on 22ex25. The Welsh Skeet team also
managed to win the Team Gold medal.
All in all during the weekend, the Welsh Target Shooting Federation
managed a haul of 18 individual medals and also a handful of team medals
to boot.
Kelly's heroes returned victorious to the hotel and proceeded to empty
the bar of liquid refreshment in celebration.
Thanks must go to the management at the WTSF, Roger Roberts, John
Dallimore and all the other shooters for making us all very welcome,
even though it meant spending 30 hours on a coach. Roll on next
year's championships in Belgium.
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Llandegla Shooting Ground - 100 DTL Welsh Selection
- Sunday 4th June
Approximately
100 guns turned out for this one and the weather was somewhat kind to all
as well.
Leading the way after the first "wave" of
shooters had finished was Karl Jones posting a 100 x 299. With lots
of shooters hoping to ditch previous scores and improve on their team
positions the score was on the board for all to see and the afternoon
shift knew they had to shoot well or risk having points put on them yet
again.
A.P. Jones matched Jones score with a 299 of
his own, but towards the end of the day - two shooters posted a maximum
i.e. G.W.I. Evans and E. Biddaulph 100 x 300. A shoot off ensued and
the winner was Biddaulph shooting a clear round in the shoot off to take
High Gun and the North Wales Championship Trophy.
Evans was reduced to taking 1st in A grade.
K.Jones had 1st in AA with P.R.Morgan 2nd in AA along with J.Rogers.
Amongst the other winners from memory were
A.J. Poole T.K. Brown B. Chivers D. Ricketts all taking prizes in there
respective classes. (Apologies for any names of winners that were failed to
be mentioned)
A special mention must go to 2 Lady shooters
by way of C. Jones and S. Morrow on shooting there first 25 straights at
DTL - well done girls.
Next shoot at Mid Wales in June.
The full results can be found here
on the Llandegla website
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Telpyn - 100 Reg National Skeet - Welsh Selection - Sunday 4th June 2006
"Four years trying, more cartridges than I care to remember and more
money than my wife will ever find out about", those were Richard
Stepney's comments after shooting his first ever 100 straight at Telpyn
today.
In near perfect conditions, 5 squads turned out for the fifth selection
shoot, but some found the going quite hard in the heat of the day.
Hi gun was Richard Stepney with 100ex100 with veteran shooter Chris
Potter hot on his heels with 97 after uncharacteristically dropping a
complete pair on peg 4 on his 3rd round. Also on 97 was Nigel Hodson.
Fresh from his success at SW2000 last week - junior Shane Wilson put in
another polished performance with a 95ex100 to take "C" class and the
Junior category.
Carol Francis once again proved that she is the one to beat in the
Ladies category with a 96ex100.
With only 3 more selections to go, the pace is now beginning to hot up
and it looks like the last few team places will be harder fought for
than ever.
There is now a 3 week break in the proceedings, but with the Skeet Club
International and English Open on consecutive weekends there is
certainly no peace, or Sunday Lunch for the skeet shooters.