Guyana’s rifle shooters completely dominated their regional opponents to emerge overall winners of the West Indies Fullbore shooting championships which ended yesterday at the Paragon rifle ranges in Barbados.
The Guyanese won both the long and short range titles in convincing fashion to tap a week of impressive showing at the regional championships.
Yesterday, Guyana proved that their victory in the long range team for the Milex Cup shot at 900 and 1000 yards was no fluke when they carted off the regional short range title at the 300, 500 and 600 yards ranges.
The effort earned them the prestigious Anchor Cup, symbol of rifle shooting supremacy in the Caribbean.
Guyana recorded 1146 points with 79 V-bulls to win the short range title.
Guyana’s nemesis Trinidad and Tobago finished a distant second with 1115 points with 69 V-bulls while there was a close battle for third place between host Barbados and Antigua/Barbuda.
Barbados squeezed past the Antiguans 65 V-bulls to 58 after both teams ended on 1107 points.
Bermuda could only manage 999 points with 39Vs and they occupied the cellar position.
On Saturday, the Guyanese amassed a grand total of 741 points with 37 V-bulls to win the Milex Cup beating their closest rivals, hosts Barbados by 63 points in the long range battle shot over 900 and 1000 yards.
Vice captain Dylan Fields spearheaded the Guyanese assault with 97 points and four V-bulls from a possible 100 with scores of 48.2 at 900 and 49.2 at 1000 yards.
Caribbean top gun Ransford Godluck produced an excellent score of 96 with four V-bulls followed by team captain Mahendra Persaud with 95/5, Dane Blair 94/6, Richard Fields and Ryan Sampson with 92/6 and 92/3 respectively, John Fraser 90.4 and Claude Duguid 85/6.
Apart from Guyana’s shooters, Antigua/Barbuda made tremendous strides since joining the regional body finishing third overall with 670 points and 29 V-bulls.
Barbados claimed the second position with 678/29 while one of pre-tournament favourites, Trinidad and Tobago, placed a disappointing fourth with 652/29.
Bermuda ended at the bottom with 534/16.
Saturday’s victory was another impressive day for Guyana’s marksmen following their outstanding showing the individual competition.
Goodluck emerged the overall winner from a field of 55 competitors. He finished with 437 points with 33 V-bulls to beat Trinidad and Tobago’s Norris Gomez into second position with 429/27.
Trinidadian Justin Lall was third with 428/29, followed by Guyanese Dylan Fields with 423/21 and Barbados’s female shooter Sharon Marshall who also ended on 423/21.
Mahendra Perdaud 422/22, Marlon King of Barbados 415/22 and his teammate Karl Branch 414/25, Richard Fields 409/28 and John Fraser 409/20 rounded out the top 10 shooters in the Caribbean.