The beginning of June saw a trio of Scottish rifle shooters make the trek to Bisley to participate in the British 50m Championship. Tom Diggle, Brogan Smith and Ruaraidh Macleod made their way south to compete in both 3P and Prone events amongst a sizable gathering of very capable athletes, including some only recently returned from the Commonwealth Games. This trio have been progressing through the STS talent development pathway for a few years, from junior and development squads to academy and high performance.

Saturday saw the 3P event in very warm weather with changeable light conditions. In spite of this, Tom attained a new PB of 1121 and a respectable 10th place in a very competitive field, with Brogan coming in 12th and Ruaraidh 13th, scoring 1116 and 1114 respectively. The 3 Scots also managed to make up a 3P team which, sadly, lost to England.

Sunday brought the prone event, again with challenging light conditions and possibly one of the lighter winds seen at Bisley, although still awkward and inconsistent.

Tom was first up, managing well despite the conditions and narrowly missing out on going through to the qualifier with a score of 611.6. Brogan and Ruaraidh were up next, Brogan gained a great 15th place with 606.7, seeing off some tough opposition. Ruaraidh managed to make it to 4th place, scoring 616.6, just 0.1 points off 3rd place, taking him through to the qualification - outstanding considering this was Ruaraidh’s first time shooting at this range!

The qualification round saw Ruaraidh making 3rd place with 619.9, once again 0.1 behind the number 2 spot, guaranteeing him a place in the final, which, after a tense and close-run affair finished with him securing 2nd place, only 0.4 points off first place, which was taken by Lina Jones.

Well done to the athletes in their efforts in representing Scotland at a challenging competition.

Report and Photos by Ruaraidh Macleod

Access to the STS talent pathways can be found here: