In the first overseas match of 2009, Georgina Geikie won the Gold medal in the last match of the meeting - the Women's Air Pistol competition on Saturday.

At the Grand Prix of Pilsen on 17th January, Gorgs scored 383 in the qualification Stage to lead the field of 28 shooters by three points. She kept the lead throughout the final and was only at risk of losing the Gold medal for a few seconds during the firing of the tenth shot. Starting the final in fourth place, Miroslawa Sagun-Lewandowska of Poland had shot well to reach second, and needed her last shot to be 1.4 points better than Gorgs to steal first place. Gorgs shot a 9.5, meaning that Miroslawa could win but needed a perfect 10.9. There was a long wait as she was the last to fire, but her 10.0 left the Gold medal safely to go round Gorg's neck.

Pistol Gold for Grogs in Plzen

 

The other British finalist of the day was Geraldine Buckley in the Junior Women's Air Pistol. Starting in seventh place and four points behind the Bronze medal position suggested that she had a tough job to make it to the podium. She did not manage to close the gap in terms of points; in fact it increased to 5.2. However some other shooters struggled and Geraldine did move up to fifth place.

Although Geraldine did not win a medal, she did achieve another distinction. She became the first Briton at an overseas international match to shoot an air pistol tie-break for a place in a final under the new ISSF Rule introduced on 1st January 2009. In fact four girls tied on 371, but only two of them could go forward to the final. They therefore had to fire a tie-breaker of five shots which are scored decimally. Geraldine excelled with her 50.6 points, thus earning seventh place going in to the final, the other shooters producing 47.8, 46.7 and 44.7.