A PAIR of Elizabeth College target rifle shooters have been picked for the Great Britain under-19 squad. The talents of Nick Branch, 17, and Rob Waters, 18, have been recognised by the British selectors and they have made it into the Athelings squad who are touring Canada in August.
In all, they will be in the North American country for 30 days.
‘It’s a fantastic achievement,’ said their coach, Rick Le Page.
‘They’ve shown promise ever since they started shooting four years ago. From then on there’s been an enormous amount of commitment on their part.
‘The hours they spend on the range weekly is quite enormous. This year they’ve got a full summer of shooting. It’s going to be busy.’
The duo will be part of the Elizabeth College team that will try and regain the Haines Shield from Jersey’s Victoria College.
They also have the Bisley schools’ meeting where they will be aiming to win the Ashburton Shield.
‘We’ve got a good team in that and we’re looking at another top-10 place,’ said Le Page.
They will also be back at Bisley for the prestigious Imperial Meeting.
But the main focus for the young shooters is making it into the Channel Islands team that is taking part in the Palma World Championships in Ottawa, which coincides with when they are in Canada in August.
It will be a challenge for Branch and Waters as the CI team won the European Long-Range Champion-ships at Bisley last year.
The World Championships take place every four years.
‘I’m pretty excited about going to Canada [with the Athelings],’ said Waters.
‘If we do well in that, we could shoot for the CI against England. But there are quite a lot of good shooters in the CI.’
Article posted on 18th May, 2007 - 12.00am
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