Summer 2006 - National Rifle Association

with 19 vees. The long range in the afternoon provedtrickier, with the wind starting to swing round fromthe left occasionally, which caught a few people outand the lead swapped after each range. After 1000yards, it became clear that Adam Jory of Guernseyhas taken the gold with 296.35, followed by Peter Jory,also of Guernsey, and Gaz Morris of Wales, both onlya point behind. Exactly equal, with 29 V bulls, a tieshoot at 1000 yards was indicated to decide whowould get the silver. Peter put in a fine 25.2, but aslightly wayward sighter meant that Gaz finished with23.2, leaving Guernsey to take the two top slots.Gold Adam Jory (Gue) 296.35Silver Peter Jory (Gue) 295.29 (tie 25.2)Bronze Gaz Morris (Wal) 295.29 (tie 23.2)The Opening Ceremony was looming large, and aftera certain amount of weighing the pros and cons, mostteams decided to go to the Opening Ceremony andget a bus back up to Bendigo the same night.Unfortunately, the timing of the buses the followingday was such that most people had the choice of agood night’s sleep in the village and missing most ofthe following day’s shooting, or getting to bed veryearly in the morning, but having the opportunity topractice as normal. The Opening Ceremony itself isone of the highlights of the Commonwealth Games,particularly for those who are competing in the Gamesfor the first time; the journey round the stadium with80,000 spectators cheering, clapping and taking flashphotographs is a heart-pounding and bewilderingexperience. For the first time ever, the home nationstrouped out together, and once clear of the ramp downinto the stadium, there was a certain amount ofmingling going on to get photographs with friendsfrom other teams. Attempting to chat up the youngladies who had led each of the teams out also appearedto be a popular pastime.After a further three days of practice, the first of thematches arrived. The Pairs competition is based on aQueen’s Second Stage and a Queen’s Final shot in asingle day, with each shooter being allowed to coachthe other. Early conditions looked promising; withvery little wind, but by Message One at 300 yards therewas a right-hand wind which could be a little trickyto read. The top shooters demonstrated their abilityto raise their game when it mattered most, and atlunchtime England, Guernsey, New Zealand andAustralia had all dropped only a single point apiece.The England pairing of Glyn Barnett and Parag Patelmanaged an outstanding 299.47 ex 300.60, with Paragputting in a perfect 50.10 at 500 yards. Lunch was aslightly tense affair, with some people kickingthemselves for early mistakes due to nerves, as thepressure to perform is considerable.Moving back to long range, the wind repeated itsearlier trick of swinging through zero with enoughstrength to take the shot into the magpie. The mostsuccessful strategy seemed to be to wait until the windswung back round from the right. Tricky conditionscontinued back at 1000 yards, with sudden gustsrequiring up to seven minutes right, compared to anaverage of three minutes. Parag Patel, coached byGlyn Barnett, managed the only possible on the range;England took the gold, a point ahead of Australia.Malaysia took bronze.Gold England 594.87Parag Patel 297.44Glyn Barnett 297.43Silver Australia 593.74Bruce Scott 297.39James Corbett 296.35Bronze Malaysia 592.72Mohamed Bin Zainal Abidin 297.42Hamsan bin Zulkeflee 295.30With a day off before the individual competitions,many of the teams took the opportunity to escape fromthe hotel and go out for dinner, or find some otherway to wind down before the practice session the nextday.The Individual Match comprises a full Queen’s Prizecourse of fire, with the short and long ranges beingspread over two days. Fortunately, the practices beforethe start of the Games proper had very sensibly beenrescheduled so that there would be the opportunityto practice at both long and short ranges in themorning and afternoon. The light conditions onWellsford Range are very dependent on the time ofday, with the morning light coming from 1 o’clockbehind the butts, and a significant change inconditions in the afternoon, as the sun swings roundin front of the target faces. As with the Pairs Match,there were a few shaky starts from nervous shooters;however the conditions were relatively easy for 300and 500 yards. Moving back to the 600 yards distanceof the Queen’s First Stage, a number of shooters gotbadly caught when the wind started to shiftsignificantly. In the afternoon, the winds continuedto be tricky, and only Bruce Scott of Australia andParag Patel of England completed the day with a cleanslate.With a practice day between the long and short ranges,many shooters elected to recheck their zeros the nextday. They were all in for a bit of a shock. The relativelybenign wind that they had got used to had becomesomething more malicious, with rapid and significantshifts in both angle and velocity, throwing shots intothe wide inner and magpie. Many left the rangemaking strange and terrible predictions about theshort range scores being swamped by a hurricane ofmagpies. The night was a sober one. The hopes ofmany of the lower ranked shooters to make up a few39