Double gold and double silver for shooters

Pcs: Johnny Bugeja

Clay Shooter Tom Sawyer became a double gold medalist yesterday as he secured his, and Gibraltar’s, second Gold of the NatWest Island Games in Gotland.
Having got a taste for gold in the team event along with Harry Murphy, Mr Sawyer scooped his second in the individual round following intense touch-and-go competition with only the narrowest of margins between competitors.
In fact, Mr Sawyer’s points total of 131 tallied with that of second place Menorca and was just one point ahead of third place Cayman Islands. This called for a shoot-off between the two competitors.
reflecting on his “phenomenal” day Mr Sawyer said: “It’s indescribable really, the emotions are…indescribable, it’s absolutely phenomenal.”
“We’ve had an absolutely phenomenal three days,” he added.
Of the nail biting finale to the two-day competition mr Sawyer said: “We shot 125 clays over two days and six of us went into the final.”
“We shot 25 birds, full use of gun and at the end of it the chap from Menorca and myself were tied for Gold so we had a 25 bird full use of gun shoot-off between the two of us.”
“I missed a couple I missed the first two and started to get a bit worried then and I said ‘look just plod on, just carry on and keep going,’ and then one missed a couple and then I missed another one and he missed three in a row, it was kinda like touch and go all the way through.”
“With ten to go I was three in front so it was just a matter of trying to keep calm, keep my head together and at the end of the day I won by two,” he said adding that these memories will last a life time.

Double gold Sawyer, and double silver medallists Patron and Payas celebrate with gold medallist Harry Murphy.

Gibraltar’s shooters have hauled in nine medals over the past three days with many of the individual events still to be played. Moreover, in just three days of competition Gibraltar’s shooter have equalled their totals from Bermuda in 2013 and Jersey in 2015.
Daniel Payas and Jonathan Patron secured silver medals on successive days at the 2017 Island Games after they came second in the 25m standard pistol team event the day after taking the same position in the ISSF 10m Air Pistol team event.
The podium finish came as quite the surprise at least to Mr Patron.
He said: “To be honest I actually thought I’d done really badly and when the scores came out I didn’t even go and look at them because I didn’t think we had a chance and then when somebody came over to me and told me we had silver, I was shocked, I was surprised and happy as well so it’s been a good day.”
“We’ve still got a couple more competitions to go…the whole squad is doing well, the ladies have taken events and we’re all having a good time and medals keep coming in.”
They were presented with their medals at a ceremony at the shooting range yesterday afternoon.

Double celebration for pistol shooter Bettina Manner who was
presented with her bronze medal on her birthday yesterday. Ms
Manner has, so far, won a silver medal in the 10m Air Pistol team
event and a bronze in the 25m Sport Pistol team event along with
Sasha Alexdottir.

Their fellow pistol shooters Bettina Manner and Sasha Alexdottir collected the bronze medals they had won the previous day at the same ceremony. This was a particularly special occasion for Ms Manner as it was also her birthday.