Nicola Guy prevailed in a fiercely fought battle to claim her first national full bore/target rifle shooting title at the recently concluded Jamaica Rifle Association National Championship which was contested at the Jamaica Defence Force Twickenham Park Range, in St Catherine, Jamaica.

 On the opening day, Guy earned 145.10 points to finish a breath behind 2019 champion, Denis Lee at 145.11 and ahead of two-time defending champion, Captain Dwayne Ford who had 143.6.

  On day two the in-form lady marksman, threw down the gauntlet by shooting 49.5 out of 50 points in the first event which was 10 shots at 500 yards.

 Although Major John Nelson was able to replicate that score in the first event, Guy cemented her opener with 47.4 out of 50 at 600 yards in the second event, a score only bested by Karen Anderson who shot 48.3.

 However, Guy’s consistency paid off when at 900 yards she shot 61.3 out of 75 points which kept her ahead with an overall tally of 302.22, which enabled her to claim the title.

 Anderson shot 65.4 to amass 299.21 points and take second place overall.

 Claude Russell shot 68.3 to win the 900-yard bank and finish with 298.18 which earned him the third spot on podium.

 Ford was fourth with 298.11, Nelson placed fifth with 297.15, while Lee finished sixth with 296.22, in seventh place was Dr. Derek Mitchell – O Class Champion with 236.5 and eighth was Phillip Scott with 233.8 points to round out the top eight.

Outstanding shooting from their eight-man Long Range Team team helped Guyana land the Milex Cup at the 2022 West Indies Full Bore Championships currently underway at Twickenham Park in Jamaica on Friday.

The shooters from South America aiming at targets at 900 yards were the only team to score over 700 out of a possible 800, with a total of 715.35 to take the title over Canada (682.32), Antigua & Barbuda (655.22). Hosts Jamaica finished fourth with a combined score of 652.16.

Four of their shooters score higher than 90 points during the competition - Sherwin Felicien shot 93.3, Roberto Tewari, 92.7, Peter Persaud, 91.5 and Dylan Fields 90.6 – as Guyana dominated the competition.

However, the best shooter on the day was Antigua & Barbuda’s Anderson Perry who scored 49.1 on the first detail and 48.2 on the second for a combined score of 97.3 out of a possible 100. His teammate Christopher Joseph was also excellent with a score of 96.6.

Karen Anderson was Jamaica’s top shooter with her score of 88.3.

Guyana will go for the sweep on Saturday in the Short Range Match at 300/500/600 yards in which Lennox Brathwaite is defending champion in the Wogarth Cup.

Multiple-time winner Lennox Braithwaite of Guyana won the Grand Aggregate in the individual event at the 2022 West Indies Full Bore Shooting Championships on Thursday. The championship is being held at Twickenham Park in St. Catherine, Jamaica.

Brathwaite, who lamented the pandemic-induced relative lack of preparation coming into the tournament, won with a score of 467.39 out of a possible 480 points. He defeated Emmanuel Gauvin and Avtar Nanrey of Canada as well as compatriots Sherwin Felicien and Ransford Goodluck, who finished in the top five.

Guyana had five shooters in the top 10.

Jamaica’s national champion Dwayne Forde scored 449.30 to finished seventh while Karen Anderson was 17th.

Meanwhile, Jennifer Jordan-Cousins of Barbados scored 436.20 while out-dueling Anderson (435.25) to win the Amazon trophy which goes to the top female shooter. Women shoot against the males on the same targets and use same equipment in the competition.

The competition continued on Friday, October 28, with the team event which comprises a short-range and long range component.

The long-range team match, for the Milex Cup, began on Friday and will be followed by the short-range (300m/500m/600m) team match for the Wogarth Cup.

Braithwaite is the defending champion. The short range team match is Saturday, October 29.

Forty shooters from across the Caribbean are in Jamaica for the 2022 West Indies Full Bore Shooting Council Championships set to run from October 24 - 29 at the Twickenham Park range in St Catherine following a two-year hiatus because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The best shooters from Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Canada, Guyana, Trinidad & Tobago will be vying to claim the title held by Trinidad and Tobago when the tournament was last held in 2019. However, there will likely be a new champion as the twin-island republic has sent only one shooter to the tournament this year. Barbados, too, has sent a single shooter.

The six-country championship will feature shooters aiming at targets from a minimum of 300 to a maximum of a 1000 yards.

Guyanese Lennox Braithwaite, Wogarth Cup champion, is back to defend his title having had the highest score in the short-range team match last time out. However, he admitted to Sportsmax.TV that his confidence is not where it should be going into competition.

“As a sportsman we try our best to prepare ourselves but there were two years of not shooting and so the kind of preparation that we would have liked we have not been able to on the outdoors but on the indoors, we would have done some of the exercises that would keep the muscle memory,” he said, but in terms of reading the weather conditions and so on for two years we would have been off.

“I am not so confident because I would guess that all the other teams maybe going through similar or had a better position in preparing. In Guyana, we hadn’t had the use of the ranges until about a month ago, so we had some challenges there.”

Notwithstanding the challenges, Brathwaite said he plans to offer a stern defense of his title.

“I would want to defend that position but at the same time I have to realistic because there are people who want to win also.”

He pointed out the shooters from Antigua and the host country as those he has to be wary of. “Nobody wants to lose at home,” he said laughingly.

Indeed, Jamaica would not want to lose at home and as such have fielded a strong team led by Phillip Scott and that includes national champion Dwayne Forde, who has been deemed a ‘definite contender’ for the individual title.

The team also comprises Karen Anderson, Denis John Nelson, David Rickman, Denis Lee, Claude Russell, Nicola Guy, Jose Nunez and Canute CC Coley.