Ritchie stars as Great Britain shine at Shooting Para Sport World Cup

Allan Ritchie led the way at the World Shooting Para Sport World Cup as Great Britain enjoyed a fine four days in Al Ain, in the UAE.

After a shaky start, the Brit regained his composure to shoot an impressive 34 in the PT1 seated competition, winning gold ahead of Australia’s Scottie Brydon and Italy’s Oreste Lai.

Ritchie had been tied for first place with the Australian after the first day, both shooting 64 through three rounds, before the Brit managed to pull clear on the final day of competition to finish top of the podium.

Britain got off to a flying start in the World Cup on day one when Matt Skelhon produced a world record equalling score of 254.8 in the R3 (10m air rifle prone mixed SH1), tying with the legendary Varonika Vadovicova’s score at last year’s event.

Skelhon produced consistent rounds to finish 1.5 points clear of Slovakia’s Radoslav Malenovsky in second – Vadovicova came third.

There was plenty of success in the team events as Great Britain took gold in the R9 (50m rifle prone mixed SH2).

A team made up of Ryan Cockbill, Tim Jeffrey and James Bevis collected 1849.4 points for their rounds, enough to finish 14 points clear of Thailand as Ukraine took the bronze.

The same trio then followed that up with another gold medal in the team the R4 (10m air rifle standing mixed SH2).

The team fired out a total of 1885.0 to blitz their way to the front, beating France and Thailand to top spot.

And Cockbill followed up on his team success with an individual bronze medal in the R9 (50m rifle prone mixed SH2).

The sharp shooter scored 225.2, as Ukraine’s Vasyl Kovalchuk took gold and Thailand’s Anuson Chaichamnam holding down silver.