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Henry Bevan Wins The 2017 Colts Challenge
Henry Bevan from Suffolk has been crowned the 217 Colts Challenge champion at The Game Fair at Hatfield House, Hertfordshire.
With the top ten Colts based on CPSA rankings as of June 1 invited to take part, the competition was fiercely competitive. Eight of the shooters attended and were divided into two groups of four to shoot the 25 target Sportrap course, with the top four scores progressing to the final.
15-year-old Henry put on an impressive display of shooting throughout the competition, posting the highest score in the semi-finals with 22 ex 25. No other shooter posted a score in the 20s.
The final itself was a closely run battle between Henry and Karl Miles. With the added pressure of shooting in front of a crowd, the nerves appeared to get the better of the boys early on – with them all dropping targets.
Bevan shot a perfect five on his second stand to give him a one-shot lead on Karl, with the other finalists (Oliver Zaitschenko and Chris Orchard) further behind. From there, it was a case of 
no looking back, as Henry finished on 19 to take the honours and Karl ultimately just falling short with 18.
Oliver and Chris both finished on 15 and were left to shoot off on a stand of five pairs to determine who finished third. After two nail biting shoot off rounds where the boys couldn’t be separated, Oliver fired a perfect ten in the third shoot off round and Chris was unable to match his efforts.
With his family watching on, Henry was clearly delighted as he received 750 Lyalvale Express cartridges, a year’s subscription to all of Time Inc’s shooting publications and a cash amount from the CPSA.
Karl received 500 cartridges and Oliver 250. Our thanks to all the sponsors who contributed to the event.