The Great Britain team at the ISSF World Championships in Zagreb today won three medals in the Junior Men’s Rifle and Shotgun events.  Matthew Thomson won Gold in the Junior Men’s 50m Prone Rifle with a score of 593 – a single point ahead of the second and third placed shooters.  The twenty year-old Edinburgh University student, who was tenth at last year’s European Championships, shot steadily in tricky conditions to win Britain’s first rifle World Championship medal since fellow Scot Jonathan Hammond won the same event eight years previously in Barcelona.

 

Matthew also teamed up with Richard Phillips and Ken Parr to win the Junior Men’s Prone team event.  Scores of 586 and 585 earned the two English shooters 15th and 19th places respectively, and earned the team a five point margin over the USA and Germany.  This team medal is the first Gold for a British Rifle team for 24 years – the previous one being for the 50m Kneeling event, which is no longer contested, and was won by Alister Allan, Barry Dagger, John Davis and the late Malcolm Cooper. 

 

The third medal of the day came on the shotgun range, where Carl Exton was second in the Junior Men’s Trap event.  Exton had been placed 13th with 68 after the first day’s 75 targets, but came within one clay of a perfect second day of qualification to record a total of 117.  A shoot-off was required for the medals, with Carl taking silver.
 

The previous days had seen a number of relatively disappointing performances from the British team, most notably in the Men’s Prone where Mike Babb was a frustrating ninth with 596, losing a place in the final on the count-back tie breaking system.  Neil Stirton produced his best international performance to date to take 24th place, while Dave Phelps was unable to make it through the elimination stage.