Anxious mother waits out rifle protest

Press, 30 July 1986, Page 48

Anxious mother waits out rifle protest

Betty Cooper sports much shorter nails today than when she left her Auckland home for the Edinburgh Commonwealth Games. She had to sit out a twohour protest before knowing that her son and daughter-in-law had won a gold medal for England in the small-bore pairs three positions rifle shooting.

The first husband and wife combination to win a gold together in any games shooting event — perhaps in any games event — Malcolm and Sarah Cooper won by a narrow two points from Canada.

For the expatriate

Briton, Mrs Cooper, and her daughter-in-law’s mother, watching their offspring in international competition for the first time, the two hours of waiting was agony. They had already endured the five long hours of the contest itself, watching the shooters go through the physical and mental torture of aiming 120 shots across 50 metres of wildly fluctuating wind at a target smaller than a 1c piece. First they shoot lying prone, then standing and finally kneeling in an extremely uncomfortable position in what is regarded as the most gruel-

ling section in the sport of rifle shooting. For Malcolm Cooper, whose parents emigrated to New Zealand some years ago, the gold medal /will form a pair with the gold he won at Los Angeles two years ago.

It is the first such medal for his wife, though. She took up the sport on first meeting her husband as it was the only way they could find time to be together. The Coopers train 23 hours a week, using zen and yoga for mental conditioning — a technique which Mrs Betty Cooper could well have done with.