Gold for shooting star Huckle
17th January 2009Teenage England shooting star James Huckle followed up his triple gold medal winning performance at last year’s Commonwealth Youth Games with another gold at the Australian Youth Olympic Festival in Sydney today (Friday).
Huckle, from Essex, was one of the stars of the show for Team England at the Commonwealth Youth Games in Pune in October.
He was expecting a tougher challenge shooting for Team GB in Sydney and aimed for a target of securing a spot in the final of the 10m air rifle.
He did that in style by comfortably topping the rankings in the qualification round with a score of 588 – 17 ahead of Singapore’s He Chang Teo.
That gave him a great advantage going into the final, where he again top scored with 103 for a cumulative score of 691 and another gold medal.
“It’s an amazing feeling to win any medal, but gold especially is really good,” said Huckle. “I’ve been training pretty hard over the last four months or five months.
“Qualification started off really well for me. I followed my routine and was looking forward to the final. In the final it is all about securing the medal. I was pretty consistent. I started steady and I knew that if I kept composed it would be pretty good at the finish.
“This is a stepping stone towards London 2012 for me,” he added. “I love the kind of intense atmosphere at these competitions and I want more.”
James Ow Cheston from Singapore climbed into the silver medal spot with a total of 672.9 and Australia’s Edwin Gouw took bronze with 670.1.
Sheree Cox, another of Team England’s shooters in Pune, topped the rankings in the qualification round of the women’s 10m air rifle with a score of 391, which was equalled by Malaysia’s Nur Ayuni Farhana Abdul Halim. But Cox couldn’t produce a repeat performance in the final and dropped down to fourth. Cox won gold and bronze in Pune.