After the International Grand Prix in Costa del Sol, British shooters were glinting with medals in the winter sun. Anita North reports
In January more than 60 British shooters headed to sunny Spain to compete in the International Grand Prix in Costa del Sol, held at Club de tiro Jarapalo near Málaga. for some it was their first time competing abroad.
The competition attracted an international field of competitors, including shooters from Spain, Ireland, Finland, Sweden and Portugal. In the previous four years this Grand Prix has been solely an Olympic trap event.
However, this year it grew, adding an Olympic Skeet competition and a Mixed Pairs trap event to its schedule. these new events were not the only way the event expanded; the increasingly popular main competition attracted 270 competitors this year, meaning that it had to be held over three days instead of the usual two.
In Olympic Skeet Alexandra Skeggs took Women’s gold, with Emily Hibbs also in the final. Luke Youngs took bronze in Junior Men. In the Men’s event Jeremy Bird and Freddie Killander won gold and silver respectively.
Abbey and Ed Ling won bronze in the Mixed Pairs event, with another British pairing, Peter Wilson and Georgina Roberts, also reaching the final, finishing in sixth place.
It was great to see a good number of British Juniors competing strongly. In Junior Women, Maddie Purser won silver and Elise Dixon took bronze, while Lucy Hall finished in a close fourth place.
In the Junior Men’s competition tom Betts put in an impressive performance to win gold. this was tom’s first taste of international success in Olympic trap.
Daniel Campey joined tom on the podium, winning bronze. Lewis Owen was in fourth place. In the Women’s competition, Kirsty Hegarty won bronze, with Abbey Ling also in the final and finishing in sixth place. In the Men’s event, three of the six finalists were British. Mike Wixey was on awesome form and won gold ahead of Matthew Coward-Holley, who took silver.
Steve Scott sadly didn’t manage to make it an all-British podium and finished in fourth place. Steve Ling was another British success, taking gold in the Para trap category. George Glover just missed out on the medals, finishing in fourth place.
All in all, that’s a great start to the year. It is so good to see British shooters attending an international Grand Prix like this one. It is even better to see some of them finishing high up in the results.
Congratulations to everyone who made the trip to Spain. As I write this article the Cyprus Grand Prix is taking place and people are also starting to travel to Qatar for the Grand Prix there in the coming week.
Hopefully by the time you read this there will have been more medal successes for Britain, and these victories will only mark the beginning of British achievement in competitions throughout 2019.
So until then, happy shooting folks!
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