Great Britain Para Clay shooting Team won a Gold and a Bronze medal at the IPC Grand Prix held in Italy from 24th to 27th September 2015.
Disability Shooting Great Britain director Julie Sperling lead a team of four standing and sixwheelchair athletes to the IPC Para-Clay shot gun Grand Prix held at Tiro a Volo Cieli Aperti shooting ground near Milan, Italy.
The competition was organised by the Federation Italiana Tiro a Volo under the management of Luca Minelli as part of a series of test events to set the competition regulations and classification rules to enable Para Clay shooting to be added to the IPC event schedule.
Sarah Bond, the IPC Shooting Manager and IPC Technical Committee member Wanda Jewell attended to review the progress being made with the base research into classification protocols being under taken by the Italian Federation.
The weather was excellent and the conditions were almost perfect. After two day practice the team was in good spirits and ready to show their full potential. The event was attended by athletes from Russia, Finland, Italy, Spain, USA, UAE and other countries.
The Grand Prix was for Trap only and was divided into two competition, Standing and Sitting.
The STANDING Competition
Andy WOMBLE kept his focus against stiff opposition, had an excellent shoot to finish in 1st place.
Steve LING was lying joint 4th and after a closely contested shoot off he retained his 4th place.
Both Andy and Steve progressed to the Semi Finals.
Andy continued his excellent performance and won through to the Gold/Silver Final.
After his shoot, Steve was placed 4th
Andy kept his nerve and composure in the Final and shot an excellent score to take the GOLD MEDAL.
The SITTING Competition
Mat GOODWIN was placed 2ndplace and Paul BAILEY 4th at the end of the qualifying round.
There was a shoot off for the Bronze match and Paul came through to win a place.
Mat progressed to a 3 way shoot off for Bronze, Silver and Gold and was . He was knocked into the Bronze medal match.
Mat had the better score and took the BRONZE MEDAL and Paul was given fourth place.
James Marsh Brown, Disability Shooting Great Britain’s CEO was also at the Grand Prix and said “ I was very impressed with the way in which the team performed. These guys are all self-funded and yet they are able to hold their own and win against teams that have full funded National Teams. As the UK’s NGB we are pushing hard to get para clay and visually impaired shooting into the IPC event programme as soon as possible and we will continue to work with IPC and other nations to ensure that these groups of Para athletes receive the same help and assistance given to the able bodied teams.”
DISABILITY SHOOTING GREAT BRITAIN
NATIONAL PARA CLAY SHOOTING TEAM
Performance Director and Team Leader: Julie Sperling
Standing : Andrew WOMBLE, Reg TOMS, Craig WILLIAMS, Steve LING
Sitting: Paul BAILEY, MAT GOODWIN, Laugharne JONES, Alex SPERLING, Anthony EVANS, Chris WARNER