Hitch for top shooter

Press, 25 July 1984, Page 54

Hitch for top shooter

NZPA staff correspondent Los Angeles The Commonwealth Games double gold medallist, John Woolley, has met a slight hitch in his final preparations for the Olympic skeet shooting. The New Zealand Olympic shooting team manager, Graeme Hudson, said they learnt yesterday that Woolley is allowed only three more practice rounds on the Prado Olympic clay target range. Practice opportunities are restricted because the one range doubles up for both skeet and trap shooting events. “We’re now trying to interest half a dozen other shooters in going to a range at San Diego,” Hudson said. “Because in American skeet shooting, the clay targets are only fired out at 60 m.p.h. (97 km/h), we’ll have to get the range operators to wind up the spring to increase the speed to the 90 m.p.h. (145 km/h) used in the Olympics.” Hudson said Woolley, with his team-mates, Anthony Clarke (running game) and

Steve Petterson (smallbore rifle-prone), had begun their “psychological build-up” after achieving promising results since coming to the United States last month. Woolley finished fifth out of 108 in the United States championships on the Olympic range, Petterson was twenty-fifth out of 240 in the 50m match and Clarke was ninth out of 50. They have also been training at the United States Army marksmen’s training unit at Fort Benning in Georgia. Hudson said about their prospects: “I would expect John to be very near his Commonwealth record, which is 197 out of 200. “Steve is consistently shooting 594 and 595 out of 600 and I would expect him to shoot at least that, while Anthony is capable of shooting between 583 and 585 (600 possible).

“When he shot at the opening of the Prado range earlier this year, he was placed ninth or tenth, and about five of those ahead of him are not coming to the Olympics for political reasons.”