The National Rifle Shooting championships will now take place in March as Guyana’s shooters sharpen preparations for the West Indies Full-bore tournament in Trinidad and Tobago in the same month.
Full-bore captain Mahendra Persaud confirmed that the championships, normally held in November and rescheduled for January will now be held on March 29 and April 3 and 4 at the Timehri Rifle Ranges.
According to Persaud, a decision was made to push back the championships to March because of a rescheduling of the regional tournament in Port-of-Spain coupled with current work being done to rehabilitate the ranges. The dates for the Caribbean Full-bore championships were announced earlier as April 10-17. It will now take place from May 10-17 due to Trinidad’s hosting of the Summit of the Americas from April 17-19 in Port-of-Spain.
Guyana are the reigning regional champions having won the long and short range titles in Jamaica last year.This time round they will only be defending the short range title since there are no ranges over 600 yards in the twin island republic. Persaud disclosed that the level of the local shooters improved last year and can get even better this year once they stick to the basics and follow planned team strategies.
“With teams like Barbados on the way up as we saw in Jamaica, we have to ensure that we are not caught napping; we have to put in a lot of extra time and energy to ensure that we are successful again because Trinidad shooting conditions are difficult,” he remarked. Persaud said there was a need to have more persons participate in the sport and he threw out a challenge to the small-bore shooters in the Guyana National Rifle Association (GNRA) to take up the challenge.
He also indicated that a few former shooters have expressed an interest in returning to the sport which would be clearly welcomed.
“We will have weekly competitions leading up to the national championships both recorded and practice shoots to get out shooters into top shape,” he revealed.
The national championships will see shooting at the 300, 500, 600, 900 and 1000 yards ranges over three days of competitions.
