Our Senior Compliance Manager Tara is competing for host Island Guernsey in Pistol shooting at this year’s Island Games which are being held in July 2023. Tara has written an article about her shooting career.
I have been shooting both air and cartridge pistol for the last 20 years. I first learned to shoot air pistol whilst I was at school, and also briefly started shooting cartridge pistol just before the pistol range was closed in the late 1990s. The Island Games in 2003 saw a new cartridge pistol range built and this re-ignited my enthusiasm for the sport. I have been fortunate enough to compete at various levels over the last 20 years. My first and only Island Games to date was in 2011 in the Isle of Wight where I won an Individual Gold and Silver and two Team Silver medals. My last major competition was 2014 when I represented Guernsey at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games.
My personal greatest achievement was when I competed for the Gallie Trophy and shot for GB in the Mayleigh match in Jersey in 2011. I shot a preliminary competition on the Saturday and flew home, I later found out that my score had allowed me to qualify to shoot in the Gallie, so I flew back to Jersey the next day. The Gallie is the British Long Range Pistol Championship, it was first contested in 1951, formerly shot on the mainland before the pistol ban came into effect, it had only ever been won by one lady in all those years and I became the 2nd lady to win the trophy in what was its jubilee year. The 10 highest scoring shooters in the Gallie are selected to shoot for Great Britain in the Mayleigh match, this is a postal match against English speaking countries, our team (myself and 9 other Jersey shooters) finished in 2nd place behind the USA.
This year I am shooting 4 events both individually and as a team. My training is going really well, each event is slightly different, so my training is quite varied, but I have a lot to work on. I hope that myself, the shooting team and the rest of Team Guernsey can do our Island proud.
Elysium is excited for Tara and all of Team Guernsey in the upcoming Island Games. Go Tara!