Bendigo 2008
Three Roseville Members travelled to Bendigo over the Moomba weekend to compete in the Victorian State Rifle Shooting Championships.
Temperatures in the mid 30’s made shooting conditions very uncomfortable and trying. The wind over the five days was reasonably gentle with odd patches of a ‘flukey’ and changing breeze to test the shooters wind judging ability.
In the Syme aggregate, which is the lead up series, Mark Buchanan won the first two ranges on day one and Ian Palmer won the third range which made it a clean sweep for Roseville members. Mark went on to finish 8th in the two day aggregate.
In the Queens series, scores were exceptionally high considering the sweltering conditions and Mark again showed his champion qualities and crept up the leader board at every range and was leading with just the 1000 yard competition to go. A difficult patch with the wind resulted in the loss of a couple of points and he again finished 8th in a very competitive field. In the Grand Championship Mark ran 6th.
Roseville entered a team in the Merritt teams match and with Richard Jones, the eventual Queens winner making up the fourth member, we shot 195/200.
Following the Championships, nineteen of Australia’s top shooters went head to head in the Australia Cup Match which is an elimination series to determine the two shooters who will represent Australia at the Commonwealth Games in India in 2010. Mark Buchanan finished a very creditable 8th in the individual competition and 2nd in the pairs match. There are five more Australia Cup competitions to be shot before Australia’s representatives will be known.