A bit belated now, but on Tuesday I went to the shooting events at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, at Barry Buddon, near Carnoustie. It was a great day out and, as a competition shooter myself, it was a great chance to watch the professionals at work, as well was getting to see other events.
After delays caused us to miss the rapid fire pistols, the first event we got to see was the finals of the Men's Trap (clay pigeon shooting). We had a competition among ourselves to try to get a picture of a clay being hit. We all managed to get one! Here's mines below (you can see the puff of pink smoke) :
The first part of the finals were over and it was time for the medals matches, with Australia pitted against England for the gold medal. Australia went on to take the gold medal, and so began a rather windy medal ceremony, with the armed forces marching the flags to be hoisted.
A renown clay pigeon shooter himself, the medals were presented by Sir Jackie Stewart OBE in his famous tartan trousers!
The flags of the medallists: Australia taking the gold, with England taking the silver and India won the bronze medal match to take the bronze medal.
After the trap event, we hurried back to the 50m range for the men's 3 position final. Despite turning up 5 minutes before the event started, there were no seats in the grandstand and then some: the organisers had grossly underestimated the attendance of the finals events. We left the range and watched the event from the TV screen outside. It was a close event, with England's Daniel Rivers taking a phenomenal win. Having been second most of the match, Hammond from Scotland slipped down to 6th during the standing shooting. He was eliminated and Scotland's other entry quickly followed in 5th. Unfortunate!
While we were outside, the fullbore event finished and so began a fullbore tradition! The winner is carried through the crowds high on his chair! I didn't see any of the fullbore, but I saw his scoring card afterwards. It was a great win and another gold medal for England!
Sadly, we were not able to stay for the women's 3P finals, but I was avidly following it in the car journey home and was delighted to hear Jen Macintosh of Team Scotland getting a well deserved silver medal! Another friend of mine was shooting the day before in the men's prone shooting: Ben Kelly, shooting for Isle of Man, finished an impressive 26th out of 40 in his first games, including leading the field at one point in the event!
My final picture from the day is a badge I got from the police at the event. Aside from the competitions, the police were the one memory I take away from the day. All the police officers at the Barry Buddon Shooting Centre were fantastic: smiling, saying "hi" and "thanks for coming", as well as dishing out some banter around the venues! They really were a shining example of customer service, making everyone feel welcome and involved - more so than the volunteers, I'm afraid to say, whose job it was to do that!
So hats off to all the officers from Police Scotland at Barry Buddon and other Commonwealth venues for really bringing the games together! Hats off too to all of the athletes, who put on some spectacular performances! Both me and my cousin were really taken by immersion of speculating at these events, it's our first time at any major sporting tournament. Just ashame the next games are so far away!
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