Great Britain has earned three valuable quota places for the 2008 Beijing Olympics with outstanding performances in the ISSF World Championships in Zagreb.

 

It was Great Britain's most successful performance in a world championship in recent times with a succession of medals in the junior section adding to the Olympics places won by the senior shooters.      

Richard Faulds won his Beijing place in the Men's Double Trap with a qualification score of 142, including one perfect round of 50. Faulds who won gold for Great Britain in the Sydney 2000 Olympics just missed out on Bronze in Zagreb after a shoot-out for third place.

 

Earlier Lesley Goddard had earned Great Britain's first quota place for Beijing with fourth place in the Women’s Trap event.  Goddard shot a qualifying round of 69 to enter the final a single target off the lead.  A final round of 19 saw her tied in third place. Again Great Britain were just beaten in the shoot-out for Bronze.

 

Goddard did not go away without a medal however.  She won a team silver with  Charlotte Kerwood and Shona Marshall in the Women's Trap Team event. 

 

And Elena Little, the World Record Holder in Women's Skeet, earned a third Olympic quota place for Great Britain. A qualification round of 70 earned her a place in a four-way shoot off the last two places in the final. She finished in eighth place which was enough for a Beijing quota place for Great Britain.  

 

Performance Director of the Great Britian Target Shooting Federation John Leighton-Dyson said: "It has been a successful championsips for Great Britian. We are on our way to Beijing with out first three Olympic quota places. This is a real boost for the squad and we will be looking to build on this with more places in the run up to Beijing"

 

There were also encouraging signs for Great Britain's young shooters. The Great Britain team won a string of medals in the Junior Men’s Rifle and Shotgun events.  In the Skeet event Lawrence Collier shot an excellent qualification score of 121 to take the gold medal for Great Britain by a single target from the USA.    Collier had a slow start to the match, missing three targets in his first round, but recovered well to shoot three perfect rounds of 25.

 

And twenty year old Edinburgh University student 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. Matthew also teamed up with Richard Phillips and Ken Parr to win the Junior Men’s Prone team event finishing ahead of USA and Germany.  This team medal is the first Gold for a British Rifle team for 24 years. 

 

Another junior medal came on the shotgun range, where Carl Exton was second in the Junior Men’s Trap event after a shoot-out.

 

"Overall this was out most successful performance in the modern era, " said John Leighton Dyson, " the important thing now is to build on this in the run up to both Beijing 2006 and London 2012. "