The arrival day for many of the team members (and from many countries) was seriously disrupted by the failure of the air traffic control computer system at Schiphol airport in Amsterdam. This resulted in many athletes and coaches arriving at the wrong airport and the rest were certainly several hours late at the range. However, most people managed to get to equipment control and some were ready for an early start the next day.
The ESSU had entered three male and three female senior air rifle shooters along with six senior and two junior male pistol shooters and three senior and one junior female pistol shooters.
There were, of course, many other ESSU members shooting under GBR Talent (rifle), ATSC and SERPS. A special mention should be made of James Miller, a junior from SERPS, who shot three personal bests, improving on every match and making all three finals against some very stiff European competition and finishing no lower than 5th.
The standard in pistol was unsurprisingly high, with athletes from Mexico, Switzerland and Brazil, all of whom had won medals at the Rio Olympics.
Day 1 saw the best result for Kristian Callaghan, who had recently had six weeks off for his final year university exams, so a qualification in eighth place but finishing fourth in the final was very positive. Ian Jack also qualified in 7th place but finished 5th in the final. Waldeck Mickiewicz was only 2 points from one final although he qualified in another and Matt Reed was pleased to achieve his best score since last September.
In the juniors, Tom Whyte-Venables shot a PB by 8 points and would have made the senior final. He finished sixth in the junior final and continued with creditable, although nearer his average, scores on the following two days.
Sammy Darling qualified for all three finals, with her best qualifying score on the first day. She finished 5th, 6th and 4th in the three finals, respectively.
Day 2 ended with Waldeck Mickiewicz winning an individual bronze medal, having qualified 7th for the final. He was also part of the team with Kristian and Ian Jack who won silver after Hong Kong, China.
Tom Whyte-Venables missed the final on the second day by three X’s, showing the need for quality, not just the score.
On day 3, Ian Jack was the only ESSU Academy member to make a senior final, qualifying in 8th and finishing 7th. Max Stevens (junior), however, shot a PB by 4 points but unfortunately missed the final cut.
The senior girls had mixed results with the steadiest shoots from Shelley Moss. Steph Courty had to pull out after the first series on the second day due to tendinitis and did not shoot her third match. She had been unsure as to whether to travel at all and will, hopefully, make a speedy recovery.
Oliy Tozer, Richard Tector and Matt Reed all showed some flashes of brilliance, but Matt was the highest placed on the first day in 18th.
The rifle shooters had some steady shoots with Fabio Holder shooting almost identical scores on all three days. Alex McDonald also managed the same score (digital) on days one and two, improving by 0.1 on day three! Rex Moss had a good second day shoot at only his second international, adding twenty points to his best score in RIAC in December.
Pauline Thornton's first shoot was her best (always important when you only have one opportunity to perform!) whereas Sharon Lee's scores were very close on all three days. Hannah Pugsley only shot the last two days and improved considerably on her last shoot, finishing 16th.
Intershoot were celebrating 40 years this year and held a banquet in the function room at the range which was very well attended and the catering was excellent.
The full ESSU Team were:
Pistol:
Waldek Mickiewicz, Oliy Tozer, Richard Tector, Matthew Reed, Kristian Callaghan, Max Stevens, Thomas Whyte-Venables, Michael Arditti
Imogen Moss, Shelley Moss, Steph Courty, Sammy Darling
Rifle:
Alexander Macdonald, Rex Moss, Fabio Holder
Pauline Thornton, Hannah Pugsley, Sharon Lee
Coach:
Margaret Thomas
Additionally, Gail Rees and David Goodfellow were members of the international Jury
Full results can be found on: www.intershoot.nl
Report by Margaret Thomas