ICTSF World English Sporting Day 1 Report

The 4th ICTSF World English Sporting Championships got underway on Thursday morning at Kelmarsh Hall.

With shooters from across the World travelling over to England to shoot, the early morning arrivals were upbeat and eagerly anticipating the day ahead.

The small contingent of shooters from the Southern Hemisphere were easy to identify wearing their respective countries colours and there was a buoyant atmosphere around the grounds.

A warm day with noticeable breeze caused many a shooter issues on the challenging targets set by Clive Bramley on both the Blue and Red courses, with some of the high loopers and crossers causing trouble.

On the red course Aaron Harvey shot a superb 90 ex 100. It was a case of what could have been for the Suffolk teenager who had only dropped three shots going into the last three stands. However, that’s not to overshadow his fantastic top score on the red course on day one.

Aaron was closely followed by Arnie Palmer on 89 and then Nick Hendrick, Phil Smith and Chris Biddlecombe who all posted 88. It was unsurprising to see that 19 of the top 20 scores posted on the red course all came from AA and AAA shooters.

Head referee for the week Ian Mansfield echoed the early difficulties that many of the shooters had encountered, “There are some very tasty targets out there, the winds turned 180 degrees from when they were set up yesterday and it is pushing them about. We’ve found that some targets have beaten the shooters today.”

On the blue course it was a similar story to the red. Richard Faulds shot on Thursday afternoon and also posted 90 ex 100 to set the standard for that half of the shoot. JJ Lee dropped a further shot to finish on 89, whilst David Hughes Jnr and Ben Husthwaite both scored 86.

Course setter Clive Bramley who runs Doveridge Clay Sports said, “It’s the World Championships so it is going to be tough out there. It’s a shame the wind has effected some of the targets today, it’s completely changed direction and altered some of the targets. At the end of the day the person who hits the most targets will be the winner, whether it’s 200 straight or a 180.”

In the CPSA Sportrap Jon Kendall has set the benchmark for the week with a fantastic 93 ex 100, which is going to take some beating. A host of top shots have already taken to the course and fallen short of the mark, with the likes of Martin Myers and George Digweed and Anthony Panetta from Australia all scoring 89.

For the ICTSF World English Sporting day one list scores click here and for class and category scores click here. 

For the CPSA Sportrap day one list scores click here and for class and category scores click here.