Kenya shooting team return with lessons from South Africa
General Service Unit's Christopher Saina aims during a past Mini Bisley Shooting competition at Stoni Athi.
What you need to know:
- Seasoned Anthony Dodds was the best placed Kenyan in 184th position with a score of 627 points off 47 vee-bulls
- Kenya was making their first appearance since the 2007 World Long Range Shooting Championships held in Ottawa, Canada
- Kenya wasn’t able to feature in the team event because of their few numbers where a full team had 16 shooters while Kenya had only eight
After 17 years in the cold, it was all about playing catch-up and learning for Team Kenya at World Long Range Shooting Championships that ended on Sunday in Bloemfontein, South Africa.
Australia once again dominated to win both the individual and team titles in the championships where Kenya was represented by eight shooters; seven men and one woman.
Seasoned Anthony Dodds was the best placed Kenyan in 184th position with a score of 627 points off 47 vee-bulls as Australian Ash Bidgood claimed victory, beating the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games gold medallist, Glyn Barnett from Great Britain by six vee-bulls.
Bidgood and Barnett brought identical 739 points but what made Britain soar was his total vee-bulls of 92 against Barnett’s 86.
Jon Underwood from Britain settled third with 738.78 followed by Jim Bailey from Australia with 736.90 and Briton David Luckman with 736.81.
Kenya was making their first appearance since the 2007 World Long Range Shooting Championships held in Ottawa, Canada. The only surviving members in the 2007 team that made it to South Africa were Christopher Saina and John Ihugo.
Saina was the second best Kenyan in 209th place with 621.37 and was followed by the team captain Sanford Otundo (230) 615.45, Cornelius Koroes (249) 607.41 and Ihugo (271) 595.34.
The only lady in the team, Grace Rantille finished 303 with a score of 568-31, Alex Ikapes scored 557.23 to wind 310 with Paul Chochoi Akiru coming in 321 with 508.14.
Kenya wasn’t able to feature in the team event because of their few numbers where a full team had 16 shooters while Kenya had only eight.
Australia retained the title of the event that was last held in 2019 with a total aggregate of 7172.996, beating Great Britain to second place in 7168.1005 as the hosts South Africa finished third on 7153.869.
Others finishers in the team event were USA 7140.876, New Zealand 7030.703, Canada 6946.592 and Germany 6683.465.
“We want to thank the government for making this trip happen even though we didn’t send a full team,” said the Kenya Sports Shooting Federation (KSSF) chairman Shoaib Vayani.
Vayani said his players could have staged a better performance if they had the superior 155 grain ammunition in advance for training.
“We have been using 144 grain since the country doesn’t produce 155 grain. The players had to purchase the 155 grain in South Africa and also had to re-barrel before the championship,” noted Vayani.
