By Neto Baptiste
A nine-member team from the Antigua and Barbuda Shooting Club will represent the twin island state at this year’s West Indies Fullbore Shooting Championships (WIFBSC) to be held from October 24-29 at the Twickenham Park Range in Jamaica.
The team, which will be led by Christopher Joseph (captain), also includes Laurne Benjamin, Daryl Charles, Rev. Olson Daniel, Thomas Greenaway, Desroy Maile, Valarie Newman, Anderson Perry and Noah Lee St. Clair.
The rifle championships will consist of individual competitions and two team matches. It will be shot in the prone position (on stomach), over distances of 300, 500 and 600 yards in the short range category while there will be competition in the 900 and 1000 yards or long range categories.
Speaking on behalf of the team, Reverend Daniel said they are quite confident having dominated what he called postal shoots where each country shoots individually and post final scores online for comparison.
“We are going into Jamaica having done five postal shoots and won all five, so the only thing they should have over us is home court advantage, so we are going there with strong expectations. It’s normally Guyana, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados and Antigua and sometimes Bermuda but there are times when we have other teams from further afield that just come along to participate,” he said.
Questioned as to how a Reverend gets into shooting and even hunting, Daniel said it is something that has always appealed to him.
“I love the outdoors, I love hunting, precision, and so shooting is a precision sport and I like anything that you have to do precisely. I was in Barbuda, and while I was there from 1998 to 2002 I used to go hunting, and so my blood was getting hot with the shooting, but when I came back to Antigua there was nothing to hunt so I had to find something else, and I learnt of the shooting club and was introduced there, and its history from there,” he said.
The team is expected to leave Antigua on Sunday for Jamaica and return on October 30.