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Shooters earn Beijing places

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GBTSF 09 August 2006

Great Britain earned three quota places for the 2008 Olympic Games, a senior silver, and a number of junior medals, at the ISSF World Championships in Zagreb last week – the most successful performance in the modern era.

Richard Faulds, Lesley Goddard and Elena Little all secured places for Beijing at the Championships, whilst the women’s trap team won silver and Lawrence Collier, Matthew Thomson, and Carl Exton were amongst those juniors who medalled.

Faulds, who won gold for Britain at the 2000 Olympics, narrowly missed out on a bronze in the men’s double trap after a shoot-out for third place. However, a qualification score of 142, including a perfect round of 50, was enough to secure a place in the Olympic squad. Similarly, Goddard finished fourth place in the women’s equivalent – therefore earning her quota place - after a qualifying round of 69 and a final round of 19, saw her enter a third place play-off as well where she was just beaten for the bronze.

Goddard did manage to grab a medal however, along with Charlotte Kerwood and Shona Marshall, when they finished second in the women’s trap team event.

The world record holder in the women’s skeet, Elena Little, grabbed the other squad place when she finished eighth following a fourth place play-off.

Meanwhile, there were gold medals for both Collier and Thomson in the junior men’s skeet and junior men’s prone rifle respectively. The former shot 121 to win by a single target from the USA in his event, with the latter winning by a single point after a score of 593. Thomson also teamed up with Richard Phillips and Ken Parr to win the junior men’s prone team event – the first gold for a British rifle team for 24 years. Carl Exton was the other medallist, winning silver in the junior trap, again after a shoot-off.

"Overall it has been our most successful world championships in the modern era,” said John Leighton-Dyson, Performance Director for the Great Britain Target Shooting Federation. “We are on our way to Beijing with our first three Olympic quota places. This is a real boost for the squad and we will be looking to build on this with more places in the run up to the 2008 Games."

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