{"id":1554,"date":"2023-03-13T06:12:50","date_gmt":"2023-03-13T06:12:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/englishtwenty.org.uk\/sakenya2023\/?p=1554"},"modified":"2023-03-13T06:12:51","modified_gmt":"2023-03-13T06:12:51","slug":"day-14-free-and-not-so-easy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/englishtwenty.org.uk\/sakenya2023\/2023\/03\/13\/day-14-free-and-not-so-easy\/","title":{"rendered":"Day 14 – “Free and (Not So) Easy”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Friday 10th<\/sup> March saw the Team up bright eyed and bushytailed (well, early anyway) ready for an early departure to the range to take part in the Free State Provincial Open Championships which are a precursor to the South African Bisley Union (SABU) Meeting. The Free State course of fire is over 4 distances 300, 600, 800 and 900m. The wind at 300 looked deceptively calm, but it fishtailed fairly quickly through zero. Ed Compton was the only team shooter to go clean with a 50.2. We then moved back to 600 to shoot 2 and 11 in the SABU tradition.\u00a0 The wind was still not very strong but fickle to catch out the unwary. James Lewis top scored with a 54 and 5 Vs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We then paused for lunch to give the markers a break and resumed shooting at 13:30 and by then the infamous Bloemfontein \u2018wind machine\u2019 was working well.\u00a0 The course of fire was 2 and 10 and our Adj Martin Liversage top scored with a 49.4. He had clearly recharged his batteries, as evidenced in yesterday\u2019s photo gallery!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally we moved back to 900m for the last shoot, another 2 and 11 with a wind from the right. Jumbo again top scored with a 53.6. \u00a0Only one England shooter broke 200 and that was James Lewis with a 202 and 16vs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We were then invited by the Free State officials to go to the bar on the domestic site for the Prize Giving. You would have thought that with some 200 parched shooters they would have pre-stocked, but the stats took a while to be sorted and in the meantime the bar ran out of Castle and Windhoek Beers!\u00a0 Only one of the England Team featured in the announcements and that was Tom Shaw, wearing his GBU25 cap… Rosanne (now shooting for GB) did win a medal, but proudly displaying her England colours by collecting it wearing her England polo shirt, so we\u2019re still claiming that one for the team.<\/p>\n\n\n

Photo Gallery Slideshow<\/h2>