Australian wins top shooting event

Press, 8 April 1978, Page 52

Australian wins top shooting event

Temperatures matched temperaments in the bar last evening near the completion of the week-long national trap-shooting championships held at the Christchurch Gun Club’s range at Yaldhurst. There was unanimous agreement that the competition had been an unqualified success and if the Australian entrant, Vin Ryan, had been drinking with many of his compatriots, he must surely have concurred.

Ryan carried off the premiere event of the nationals. Yesterday, in nerfect shooting conditions, he shot a pair of possibles in the open single-rise championships and then won an arduous shoot-off with 17 other competitors to capture the title.

The single rise was contested over two visits to the traps and at the end of the two opening rounds, 18 entrants remained. In the shoot-off, all of those remaining shut possibles of 25 before they started to be whittled out.

Ray Everett (Christchurch Gun Club) lasted 42 birds before his first miss and had to be content with third prize. But the perennial Southland shooter, Jim McKenzie, and Ryan battled it out until the seventyfourth target. McKenzie, who has represented New Zealand at the Commonwealth Games, missed his target but Ryan made no mistake. This was Ryan’s third

visit to the national championships. In 1971, he won the double-rise title. He has represented New Zealand nine times.

No less exciting was the junior single rise. Three junior entrants had shot possibles in the two rounds and Russell Foster (North Canterbury), his lub-mate, lan Burt, and Terry Tuanui (Chatham ’slands) contested the shoot-off. Foster won the elimination from Tuanui and Burt, who missed his second target, came third. Dorothy Marshall (Southland) was the outright winner of the women’s single rise title. None of the 17 | women in the competition managed a possible in the first two rounds and Marshall’s 46 was good enough to secure the championship. Three women fought out the shoot-off. Noeline Herbert (Hamilton Combined Gun Club), who came second, had been tied on 43 from a possible 50 after the first two rounds and took the shoot-off from Ashburton’s Barbara Cornelius and Wendy Pickett (Nightcaps). The champion-of-cham-pions title, won by the shooter who obtained the highest aggregate score in the five championship events, went to Keith Tucker (Taumaranui).

For the first time, the points-score championship was included in the race for the title on a targets-broken basis. Tucker did not win an individual championship

event but his consistency over all gave him the title.

His scores included 49 in the skeet, 25 in the double rise, 23 in the clay sparrow, 50 in the single rise, 49 in the single barrel, and 147 in the points championship. The final event of the day was for the Glenn Cup, donated in memory of the late Tom Glenn, a long time president of the New Zealand Trap Shooting Association. The cup is competed for annually between Australia and New Zealand and was won yesterday by the Australians. The Australian team of Barry Cable, John Maxwell, Trevor Byrne, Rob Smith, Des Cosgrove, and Bill Iles won 98-94, from the home team of Jim McKenzie, Ray Everett, Graham Stott, Bill McCabe, Merv Pratt, and Gary Rogers. The final event today is the Mackintosh international teams match. The challenge trophy at stake has been competed for 30 times by teams representing Australia England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and Rhodesia. It is currently held by Australia.

The top six New Zealanders in the “high gun” competition will represent their country in the match, which starts at 8.30 a.m.