The Great Britain rifle team scored a convincing victory in the Australia Cup fullbore shooting match shot at 300, 600, 900 and 1000 yards yesterday at the Paragon ranges in Barbados.
It was a fine display of marksmanship from the British side who recorded a grand aggregate of 1952 points with 167 V-bulls leaving in their trail opponents Australia, West Indies, Canada and Channel Islands.
The British side shooters were not daunted by the challenging conditions and a sharp shower at the final range as end their tour of the Caribbean on a high following visits to Jamaica, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados.
Australia secured the second position with a grand aggregate of 1909 with 130 Vs.
West Indies wilted under the pressure and ended in the third position with 1791 with 99 Vs while Canada recorded 1736 with 91 Vs.
Norris Gomez was the top shoot for the Caribbean side with 188 points and 11 Vs followed by Guyanese captain Mahendra Persaud who shot 187.15 at the four ranges.
Jamaican Sean Elliot shot 184.13 while Guyanese Ransford Goodluck recorded 183. 7.
Saturday’s shoot brought the curtains down on eight days of intense shooting which included four days of individual competition, two days of West Indies team matches that were shared by Guyana and Jamaica with the Guyanese retaining their long range title over 900 and 1000 yards but surrendered their short range title over 300, 500 and 600 yards to the Jamaicans.
Guyanese Lennox Braithwaite retained his individual regional title edging out Trinidad and Tobago’s Michael Perez by just one point.
Persaud won the Wogart Trophy when he scored 145 points and 10 Vs in the short range team match.
Braithwaite, Persaud and Goodluck were named in the 10-man West Indies team that shot the Australia Cup while ACP retired Paul Slowe performed the duty of non-shooting captain.
Slowe in an invited comment said the West Indies team shot well under the circumstances.
“Our aim was to be competitive and we were competitive coming up against Great Britain, a world class team and Australia another international side. The conditions were very difficult,” Slowe said.
He said next year’s regional championships will be hosted by Jamaica but the dates are still to be confirmed.
Slowe said however, that regional shooters have been invited to compete in the Palmer long range match in 2015 in the United States.
“We have seen the nucleus of the West Indies team for 2015 in action yesterday.”
The Guyana will return home tomorrowy following the presentation ceremony this evening at the Garrison Reception Hall in Christ Church.
