S hooting
Sevenoaks School Shooting Club have had one of
their most successful years on record.
We started the academic year with an unbeaten
season and winning the Pairs and Fours in the British
Schools Long Range Challenge, as well as having two
students in the top three out of over 200.
The club also took part in the three-stage nationwide
ELEY Competition, among some 600 people
competing in six classes. Four students (Yaroslav
Bobko, Jean de Nassau, Mitika Agarwal and Thalia
Pettersson) shot with enough skill to make it to the
final. Thalia placed the highest with a very respectable
third in her class.
In July the small-bore team travelled to Bisley
National Shooting Centre to compete in the
Ashburton, a national competition with over 30
schools in attendance. After a long week of individual
shooting the team competitions came. Barty Wardell,
Eliza Hockey, Florian Barratt and Michael Presland
came away with a clear victory in the Schools Fours,
beating Dollar Academy (seven points behind in
second place) and earning us the Challenge Cup
and four NRA Gold Medals.
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In August a select few visited Bisley again, this time
for the National Small-bore Meeting. In the weekend
aggregate, Eliza Hockey placed sixth in B Class out of
57 and Alex Ford placed ninth in D Class. The week
continued promisingly and Christy Chan (OS 2018)
shot remarkably well, placing fourth out of 58 top
shooters in B class, getting herself promoted to A class
as well as being second U21 in the whole competition
across all classes. Florian Barratt placed third U21 in
B class.
It has been a blistering year for Sevenoaks with many
trophies won and a vast amount of experience gained.
With a fresh new batch of keen students this year, the
future can only hold even brighter things for this club.
Theo Dodds
Editor’s note: As a last hurrah for Sevenoaks School’s summer success, the Head
of Shooting, Theo Dodds, went on to win the X Class Grand Aggregate (competing
against multiple commonwealth games competitors and medallists) as well as
the Long Range British Championships, making him the seventh person in the
competition’s 96-year history to ‘do the double’ as well as being the youngest to
have ever achieved it. Theo also won the NSRA ELEY Competition, where Simon
Mavroleon (teacher of Shooting) placed 15th out of the 127 in his class.
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