Commonwealth t champion a shoots to victory

Press, 29 March 1980, Page 60

Commonwealth t champion a shoots to victory

By 808 SCHUMACHER An Englishborn shooter, representing the Christchurch Gun Club, but living in Melbourne, won the sixth and final title at the New Zealand trap shooting championships at the Yaldhurst range yesterday. John Woolley, the 1978 Edmonton Commonwealth Games skeet champion and recent winner of that event at the South Pacific regional championships, finally found the touch

that had been missing a little earlier in the week.

The points score championship, a relatively new event, involves the marksmen firing at 50 targets off 16m on two visits to the trap. A break on the first cartridge counts as three points, if the second cartridge is required, one point is deducted.

From a field of almost 400, 32 shooters broke the 50 targets, but only four — Woollev, John Power

(Wagga, Australia), George Shaw (Waitemata) and John Thomson (Rotorua)

— managed to shoot every one with the first shot and score. 150.

Woolley, who said that he had not competed much in the last year, commented that he was •‘feeling pretty good” before the shoot-off and he certainly presented a composed and confident figure on the stations.

The championship was

decided over multiples of five targets on the same scoring basis. Power missed his first shot on the fourth target and Shaw made a similar error on the third target in the second series.

Woolley and Thomson both gave a flawless performance over the first 15 shots, but Thomson missed with both cartridges with his first shot on the fourth series and dropped a further point

two shots later.

Woolley completed the fourth series without a miss to win convincingly. However, Thomson, who was attending his twentysixth successive national championship, received some compensation. His consistent efforts throughout the week won him the the ‘High Gun” title. He scored possibles in three championships and dropped only six points over the six events.

Because Thomson had previously won the Winchester Trophy gun that goes with the Champion of Champions title, the shotgun was awarded to Hutt Valley’s Murray Cameron, who was run-ner-up in two of the national events.

The junior Champion of Champions title was won, after a shoot-off. by John Wilkey (Woodville) from Philip Garland (Hutt Valley).

A teams competition Between Australia and New Zealand in the single rise double barrel was won by New Zealand by three targets.

The teams were: New Zealand (M. E. Cameron, J. R. Thomson, G. W. Shaw, D. Hansen, A. Walker, A. Clelland). Australia (J. Maxwell, A. Janies, M. Elliot, T. Salafia, B. Smith, B. Duncan).