British Open English Sporting & Sportrap Day 4 Report

George Digweed MBE picked up the overall High Gun in the British Open Sportrap on day four of the British Open English Sporting and Sportrap. George registered 95 ex 100 on the first day of the competition and it proved to be a winning score, as nobody else could match his efforts.

Having failed to retain his 2014 title last year, George made no mistakes this year, though he was pushed to the edge on the final day of the Sportrap by Jack Lovick. Jack scored 94 ex 100 to finish runner-up (by default), but dropped three targets on his final layout to leave him to rue what could have been. Steve Clark finished third overall, as he wasn’t in attendance on the presentation evening.

In the Disabled Standing category Peter Croft and Jamie Gutteridge battled out a closely fought shoot-off in driving rain to determine the category High Gun. Having both registered 78 ex 100 during the day, they took to the second layout of the Sportrap course to shoot a further 25 targets. Peter edged the contest by one target, shooting 19 ex 25 to take the honours.

Elsewhere, last year’s overall runner-up Steve Brightwell took the Veteran High Gun with 90 ex 100 and Joshua Brown won High Gun in both C class and Junior category, scoring 89 ex 100.

AAA shot Richard King recorded a 115 ex 120 on the Sporting Course early on in the afternoon to secure his place in the finals day tomorrow. Paul Thomas in the same squad also shot well and registered 114 ex 120 to also confirm his return to High Lodge tomorrow.

Among the highlights of the day included the prize draw to win a pair of Pilla Panther X7 Post 44N glasses. Blake Basey-Fisher, who shot the English Sporting course on Saturday afternoon was the lucky winner of the glasses – we hope you enjoy them Blake!

John Martin, CPSA East Midlands Regional Director has been at the British Open all week and said: “I’m here to be a shooter on behalf of the shooters. So far it’s been really good, we’ve had lovely weather, fantastic people, some really good targets and absolutely no problems - which makes my life really easy!”

Looking ahead to the finals day on Sunday 4 September he added: “I hope the finals will be well covered, well watched and well attended. It’s a long way for a lot of people to come back, but I’ve got a sneaky suspicion that a lot of them will be here.”

Attention now turns to the finals day tomorrow. John Bidwell and his team will prepare new targets overnight. The shooters returning face 75 targets, where the top six shooters will qualify for the Super Final to determine the overall winner of the 2016 British Open English Sporting.

To view the full day four results for the English Sporting click here and for the Sportrap click here.