This Is Guernsey

BAILIWICK shooters retur-ned with an impressive haul of three gold medals, a silver and a bronze from the ‘Mini Commonwealth Games’. The Commonwealth Shooting Federation Euro-pean Division Championships held in Jersey attracted competitors from England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Gibraltar as well as the Channel Islands.

There was success for the Guernsey-Sark combination of Darren Burtenshaw and Nick Dewe while Nikki Trebert and Tara Laine came away from a memorable weekend with three gongs between them.

Dave Best and Dean Wilson joined Burtenshaw and Dewe in the team for the automatic ball trap with Marlene Place attending as the development competitor.

Competition at the top of the table was fierce with A. Harris of Wales posting a clear first round of 25 ex 25, which was matched in the second round by Dewe.

At the end of the first day, Dewe and Burtenshaw were in third and fourth positions respectively.

The second day saw the Welsh team continue on top form but fine shooting from Dewe pushed him to joint second place going into the final round.

Unfortunately a poor result shot under extreme pressure saw him miss the bronze medal by a single point, with Burtenshaw finishing fifth.

The Welsh shooters took gold, silver and bronze in the individual event.

Best had been due to shoot with Burtenshaw in the pairs, but gun damage resulted in him stepping aside in favour of Dewe, which proved to be a fine combination with a score of 180 ex 200 to take the gold, one point ahead of the Welsh duo of Harris and N. Jones. Gibraltar took bronze.

The action on the skeet range at Lecq Farm Shooting Ground was more varied with the leader table changing throughout the competition.

Early leader was D. Christie of Northern Ireland with two straight rounds of 25 ex 25 out of three shot on the first day, but he had a poor second day failing to make the Olympic final, which was contested by the six top scorers.

Guernsey competitors Graeme Corbin and Noel Duquemin both finished the first day on equal scores. On the second day Corbin pulled away to finish in 12th with Duquemin in 16th place, both posting personal best scores.

In the pairs, the combined scores of Corbin and Duquemin resulted in fifth.

Trebert and Laine competed in the standard and sport pistol events.

In the former they were against all-male competition from Jersey, Wales and Gibraltar.

Laine finished both the 150 and 20-second sections in sixth and with fine shooting in the 10-second section, she retained sixth overall with a total score of 523.

Trebert shot consistently to finish in ninth.

On combined score for the pairs, the 523 from Laine and 500 from Trebert were enough to earn the Guernsey duo bronze.

In the precision section of the women’s sport pistol, Laine stormed ahead with a score of 279 ex 300, nine more than the nearest rival.

Trebert excelled in the rapid section with 268, seven ahead of the rest.

On completion of the competition, the Sarnians had equal scores of 534 in joint first place.

The top six competitors shot an Olympic style final of 20 shots and Trebert’s experience showed, finishing 8.8 points ahead for the gold.

Laine, shooting in her first Olympic final in a full international event, took silver.

In the pairs event there was no contest and Guernsey took gold with a score of 1,068.

Article posted on 20th October, 2007 - 12.00am