Shooting’s silver lining

SINGAPORE — Although Singapore’s national shooters will return from the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow with only two gold medals, compared with their haul of five golds, four silvers and five bronzes from the 2010 edition, Singapore Shooting Association (SSA) president Michael Vaz was satisfied with their overall performance.

But with this year’s Asian Games and the 2015 SEA Games on the horizon, he stressed the national side cannot stagnate.

On the final day of the Games’ shooting competition at the Barry Buddon Shooting Centre yesterday, Jasmine Ser secured the women’s 50m rifle three positions title with a score of 449.1, ahead of Scotland’s Jen McIntosh who took silver (446.6) and bronze medallist Lajja Gauswami of India (436.1).

It followed team-mate Teo Shun Xie’s gold in the women’s 10m air pistol last Friday.

Vaz said the SSA had only targeted a medal of any colour from Glasgow, given that the pair events, which Singapore won three golds in at the 2010 Games in New Delhi, were dropped from the programme this time.

The Republic’s shooters, who train using paper targets, also had to get used to the electronic targets used in Glasgow. But new electronic ranges costing S$2 million will be ready at the National Shooting Centre and SAFRA Yishun by the end of this year to help the team prepare for next year’s SEA Games. Their next major assignment will be the Asian Games in Incheon from Sept 19 to Oct 4, and Vaz is optimistic about their chances.

“Considering our limitations, we pulled two golds from Glasgow and that is a remarkable achievement,” said the former national shooter.

“We cannot predict how it will turn out since the shooters will face tougher competition. But considering our excellent performance at the Commonwealth Games, I’m sure we will do fine.”

At the 2010 Games, Singapore’s shooters won five golds, including in three pairs events — the men’s 50m pistol, men’s 25m standard pistol and the women’s 50m rifle three positions.

Looking forward, Vaz insisted more must be done to improve standards, such as making equipment are tailored to meet each shooter’s specific requirements and sizes.

“Our second line of shooters are currently fitted with equipment too big for them. Fitting each shooters with equipment according to their size will improve their centre of gravity, thus increasing their accuracy of shooting.” Vaz said.

“It costs around S$100,000 to fit all our shooters with the right equipment. Funding will be an issue but we are working hard to make sure this happens for our shooters. With the (new electronic range) facility, it will definitely improve the team’s performance since we will be familiar with the system.”

For Ser, who arrives back in Singapore this afternoon, her win yesterday adds to her two golds from the 2010 Games in the 50m rifle three position pairs with Aqilah Sudhir, and the 10m air rifle singles.

She said: “Winning this gold gives me a lot of motivation to continue working hard for future competitions as this is a difficult event.”