Winter 2002 - National Rifle Association

But it was a story for the Indian shooters, who wereall on major Government cash bonuses for any medalswon. Anjali Bhagwat took four golds with three newrecords in women’s smallbore and air rifle events, andJaspal Rana took four in the men’s pistol events.Talking to them with the help of Indian journalistKamesh Srinivasan you had to be impressed, perhapseven a little awed, by their absolute and unswervingconfidence in their ability to win the gold medals. Itwas almost as if they, and nobody else, had the rightto win. They proved it. India has emerged as theCommonwealth force that, along with Australia, is theone to beat.Mick Gault - three Golds and one Bronze.(Photo: John Knight)capped by a bronze in the standard pistol. The firstgold was the key to the next two, relief mixed with aninstant freeing up of the pressures. Tom Redhead hiscoach was one instrument in that success: Mrs Gaultand family was the other. Tom continually told Mickto leave the politics to him; thank you Mr Gault forpartly ignoring Tom and making the pungent truthknown to those who wanted to listen.Fullbore rifle, and the name was Calvert, a shootingmachine that would not take no for an answer. Heearned one gold with Martin Millar, and the other onhis own (with a new record score). He never lookedlike faltering, becoming the most bemedalled fullborerifleman in the history of the Games. Sorry DavidDodds of South Africa and Diane Collings of NewZealand in second and third, it was just not your story.David Calvert - Northern Ireland’s most successful Gamesmedallist. (Photo: Jim McAllister)The BBC came in for some stick, and quite rightly so.Let me hasten to say that the 70 strong outsidebroadcast crew on site, with their miles of cabling andtheir lorry loads of kit, worked their socks off. Theywere as dismayed as the UK shooting fans at thepaucity of the coverage on home TV. If you were inIndia you could get all you wanted, we learned, butnot at home. At 10.35pm on the night of Mick Gault’ssecond gold medal, after a shooting free newsprogramme on BBC 1, I telephoned the BBC to askwhy there had been no mention of the gold medal.The highly embarrassed lady said two things of note.First, she volunteered that there had been many othercomplaints received by the BBC about shootingcoverage. Second, she had been instructed to replythat “the BBC was concentrating on the major sports”.Ironic, really - domestic sprinters had just been leftwrithing on the lovely new track, and shooting hadthe third largest number of competitors. And the BBCbroadcast a radio programme one evening that weekdevoted almost entirely to those complaints, and thenlater, in response to criticism, said “What complaints?We had no complaints”. Do we detect a teensy weensyinconsistency? Was the coverage smothered, and ifso by whom? As they say, this one could run and run.Visitors we had in numbers, from the Earl andCountess of Wessex to the very sporting Mayor ofManchester – who hit some clays when entreated tohave a go. We had Richard Caborn MP (Minister forSport) and Kate Hoey MP (not the minister for sport).You can read Kate’s pithy pronouncements elsewherein this issue, but a big thank you to her for hercontinuing support and interest. The Earl of Wessexprovided a light moment for two ponderingcorrespondents as they were musing about life in theentrance hall of the Lord Roberts building. “What areyou two doing”, said a breezy Earl as he swept throughthe vestibule. “Just wondering where our next storywas coming from” came the reply. The Earl startedvisibly and shot upstairs.But it was Caborn who provided the real forensicmystery. He suddenly appeared on site on theMonday without announcement, did a whistle stoptour in the hands of Alan Robertson the M2002 venue59