2021 Marlborough Championships
Marlborough Championship, Labour Weekend 2021.
The Marlborough Meeting put up its usual mix of conditions for the 40 competitors.
Saturday for the double 300, 500 and 600 provided fairly light conditions with the scores reflecting that. Helen Freiman led the 14 A graders going clean with 18 centres. Ian Hughes was dominant among the 7 F Open only dropping one point with 28 X's.
The Sunday started cool but rapidly warmed with the building nor'westerly breeze. The scoring was high at 500 but possibles became a lot harder to find with only two in TR at 600.
The end of the morning saw the short range aggregates decided with Alan White in A on 298.28, B grade to Dom Henry on 287.19, and C to Sam Kershaw on 275.12. Ian Hughes continued to dominate F Open with 358.39. FTR Classic to Geoff Smith on 334.10, FTR to Phil Gardiner on 340.18 and the sole FPR Greg Hayes on 337.22.
Out to the longs in the afternoon and Charlotte Flanagan got the only possible at 800. The wind by now was getting up towards double digits with the drop-offs being hard to pick. Day’s end saw the same two leaders as the first day, but the field was tight in most grades except F Open with Ian in dominant form.
Monday provided a gentler repeat of the day before, but it was still tricky to get them all in the right spot. Going into the shoulder-to-shoulder final at 900, in F Open Ian had an 8 point lead from Frank Duckett and a further 5 on Mike Chui. Ian finished off with the class he had shown all weekend shooting 59.3. In FTR Classic it was much closer with Mike Slade having a 2 point lead on Geoff and a further 2 on Conal Richardson. Mike shot a 51.1 to take the title.
The TR final with the top 6 was really tight with Allan having a centre on Helen, John Snowden a point behind but the best centre count with 45, and then Charlotte and Chris Kershaw a further 2 points back. Allan proceeded to top score with a 48.3, John coming through to second with a 47.2 while the others had 46's and 45's.
The 900 also saw the end of the long range aggregate. Ian in F Open with 231.17 continued his domination, in FTR Classic Mike Slade had 210.4, FTR Charlie Ledbrook on 207.5 and FPR Greg had 202.4. In TR A, John had 192.8, in B, Dom surprised also with 192.7 and in C, Sam continued to lead with 185.9.[Unknown A1]
The teams match which followed was reduced to 10 shots from 15 with two relays needed due to the number of teams. The F Class club teams shot first with Cheltenham coming out ahead with 218.6 to Ashburton's 211.13 and Malvern's 207.3. Top score going to Murray Cook with 59.6.
The TR teams went to Kaituna with 198.11 from Ashburton on 187.10 and Cheltenham on 185.9.
John Miller top scoring getting the only possible with 3 centres.
Marlborough Championship Belt going to Allan on 489.45 from John Snowden with 487.47 and Helen third with 486.33.
In B grade John Miller won with 480.35 after complaining all weekend that he could not hold the rifle still and had trouble seeing it as well, yeah right. Second went to Dom Henry with 479.27 and Clinton Whyte third on 471.26. Dom had a huge weekend as he was also shooting the Marlborough Smallbore and Air rifle championship. His shots fired count for the 3 days was an unbelievable 460 covering 308, 22 and air rifle, including 3P and prone matches.
The C grade title went to Sam Kershaw with 460.21 from the evergreen John Fleming on 442.17 and Barry Brown close behind on 442.15.
Ian's dominant from in F Open saw him win with 589.56 from Frank with 576.48 and Mike Chui on 575.32.
Mike Slade won FTR Classic with 540.24 with Geoff second on 535.16 and Conal on 533.18.
The to and fro in FTR saw Phil come out ahead with 544.21 from Charlie on 534.21 and Greg in FPR with 539.26.