Crabbe ranges once again hosted the Jersey Pistol Association Jersey Open this past weekend, but not all competitors were present as, for the first time, remote entries were possible, with Guernsey fielding a team of shooters competing from home base. It was a truly international event with visitors from the Isle of Wight and Scotland also welcomed to the Jersey ranges.
The long weekend started with the fullbore events, with a very pleased Ben Videgrain emerging victorious over Guernsey in the PP1 and Service B events, a welcome result after Guernsey’s wins in the recent Island Games. Jersey was unable to find the same success in the ISSF events over the rest of the weekend however, with a clean sweep of golds for Guernsey across the board, driven primarily by the efforts of Jack Hanca and Tara Leighton-Dyson.
There were some close calls however, with IoW’s Matt Reed taking silver in the men’s air pistol by just a single inner 10, and Hanca taking the gold with just one additional point. Leighton-Dyson secured the rapid fire gold by just a single point and in the open sport pistol, Chris Le Moeligou missed out on bronze by a single X, just edged out by Scotland’s Marcus Hill.
Despite the challenges of the weekend – relentless heat, broken toilets, pigeons dropping into the range (don’t ask) and uncooperative printers to name a few – everyone had an enjoyable and memorable weekend of shooting.
A massive thanks to everyone who contributed to the event – Nikki Trebert for coordinating events in Guernsey, John Leighton-Dyson for running the Guernsey ranges, Barbara Barber for running the Jersey ranges, Robert Barber for keeping score, Mark Douglas for keeping the ranges intact and providing much needed cold refreshments, Mary Norman for providing cake and medal production services and of course to all the shooters for coming out to compete, especially those visiting from off island. We look forward to welcoming back many of you if not more for the CI Open next June, and maybe even keeping a few more medals in Jersey!
Full results are linked below