Tourism, Culture and Recreation
August 16, 2013
The following is being distributed at the request of Sport Newfoundland and Labrador:
Canadian Small Bore Nationals in Beachburg
Four provincial target shooting athletes, William Dalton, Ben Taylor and Dave Woolridge of St. John’s and Samantha Marsh of Mount Pearl, competed in three events at the 2013 Canadian National Small Bore Championships in Beachburg, Ontario. Generally, shooting conditions were better than last year. Also, this was the first time a National event followed the new Olympic rules. These rules reduced the shooting time and increased the precision of scoring in the air rifle and 50 metre prone events.
The big story was Ben Taylor’s Air Rifle match. Ben fired 614.2 on his opening day to set a new provincial record. To put this in perspective, under the previous rules the record was 580, set in 2008 by Brenda Greene. If converted to an integer score Ben would have fired 586. At the end of the opening day Ben was leading the 2012 champion Greg Sych and multiple title holder Corey Niefer. After the second day of the qualifying round, Taylor was in second place, only 5 tenths of a point behind leader Niefer. Teammate Dave Woolridge was in sixth position at the end of both qualifying rounds. Both Taylor and Woolridge advanced to the elimination finals. Woolridge was eliminated sixth, while Niefer was eliminated fourth followed by Sych. This left Taylor along with Ontario’s Dustin Giesbrecht as the last two shooters in the finals elimination match. Taylor pulled off the win outshooting Giesbrecht with 206.2 to 202.4. Taylor was declared National Air Rifle Finals Champion while Niefer took the title of men’s Open Champion. Taylor is now one of less than a handful of athletes eligible to compete for several Major Games trials including the ISSF World Championships, the Commonwealth Games and the Championships of the Americas.
William Dalton shot 1124.9 out of a possible 1308.0 points to place 5th in the Men’s Expert Class and 6th in the International Junior Class. Samantha Marsh was our only competitor in all the women’s events. Marsh fired 788.3 to place 5th in both Women’s Expert and International Junior air rifle.
After the air rifle events, both Marsh and Woolridge continued on to shoot 50-metre three position (3-P) and prone. In 3-P Woolridge fired a 2156, placing sixth in the finals, 14 points behind Martin Mailloux of Quebec. Shooting the best finals of all the men, Woolridge was able to close the gap of Mailloux to 0.9 points behind Mailloux.
Marsh fired 1026 out of 1200 winning the gold in the Sharpshooter Class and silver in the Junior Class. Marsh qualified for the women’s 3-P finals in 5th place. Firing a 91.4 she was able to remain in that position. As a result of her finish in the top two juniors, Marsh is in the running for an opportunity to try out for the world junior championships. It won’t be until October before her eligibility will be known for certain.
The week concluded with prone. Marsh shot 1709.0 out of 1962.0 points to take the Women’s Junior Championship and the gold medal in the Sharpshooter. Woolridge finished 3rd in the Men’s Prone Expert Class with a 1764.4.
Media contact:
Dave Woolridge
709-778-0405
dave.woolridge@mi.mun.ca
2013 08 16 2:20 p.m.