It was a fantastic day at the Dr Karni Singh Shooting Range today as Jon Hammond and Shona Marshall picked up silver medals for Team Scotland. This brings the shooting medal tally to four, following the bronze medals won in the 50m 3P men’s and women’s pairs competitions.

Jon was first up in the 50m 3P singles, shooting 1164-52x in the qualification round. He was only two points worse off than eventual gold medallist, Gagan Narang of India. Jon finished with 1255.3, and came away happy with the silver medal.

“I didn’t feel I had the best of finals so to come away with the silver medal is great”, said Jon. “It was almost the best case scenario, because we all know Narang is a world class shooter and was expected to win.”

After two days of competition Jon has two medals to his name, and will look to carry his form into the prone events, which start on Tuesday.

“It’s been a fantastic start to competition for me with medals in my first two events. I’ve been working really hard on my 3P scoring for the past two or three years to try and improve. It was a great experience for me to reach a final, and compete against some of these guys.”

“The prone is my favoured event, and I’ve qualified for the Olympics events before so I’ll have a day or two off and look to carry on from here.”

Shona Marshall took the second silver of the day in the individual trap event. The Aberdeenshire shooter put in a fantastic performance, including a terrific final to take silver, with a score of 91.

“I’m absolutely delighted to have won silver today”, she said. “I feel like I’ve waited a long time for this. I’ve been training very hard for this moment over the last eight years and I’m just so happy it’s finally paid off. I was over here in February and I really like the range, and I feel that I shot my best ever final. I couldn’t be happier.”

At the end of the qualification round, Shona and four other shooters were all tied on 68 points. With only three of them able to progress, they faced a shoot-off. Despite the added pressure, Shona made it through, and says that once it was out of the way, she was confident going into the final.

“The biggest challenge today was the fact I had to get through a shoot-off to make the final, as there were five of us tied on the same score. I was last to shoot, which on one hand was good because I knew what I had to beat but on the other it really did put the pressure on. Fortunately I came through that and I just felt really comfortable going on to the final.”

Jon’s pairs partner Neil Stirton shot 1135-42x in the qualification round, to finish ninth; narrowly missing out on a spot in the shoot-off. Shona’s trap partner Linda Pearson finished 10th in the qualification round with a score of 66.