sport, local-sport, Ben Emms, Commonwealth Games, Gold Coast, shooting, rifle, fullbore, Belmont, Lyndhurst

LYNDHURST fullbore rifle shooter Ben Emms has finished his maiden Commonwealth Games for Australia with a pair of top-10 results. The fifth generation shooter threatened for a medal in the Queen’s Prize Pairs and Individual competitions as part of the Shooting Australia team, but narrowly missed a podium in both. At times challenged by blustery conditions at Brisbane’s Belmont Full Bore Range, Emms placed sixth in the pairs competition alongside Jim Bailey, the duo finishing two shots out of the medals. “We shoot here a lot so there are no excuses. It was just one of those days,” Emms said when that competition concluded on Tuesday. “There was a real tough patch of wind near the end. If only we had shot earlier.” In the three-day individual competition, which concluded on Saturday, Emms ended up in ninth place. His score of 399-48v (centres) saw him fall four shots outside the medal. Englishman David Luckman shot a Games record 404-49v to take gold, while Bailey (403-50v) ended up with silver. The testing competition saw Emms and his rivals tackle eight ranges in total. He sat fifth after tackling the 300, 500 and 600 yards on day one, the leaderboard tight as it took the centre counts to separate the top 10. On day two Emms shot over the same distances, but in a competition where every miss hurts, he slipped down to 12th. It meant he went into the final two ranges in the competition – the testing 900 and 1,000 yard distances – two shots off medal pace. Demonstrating why he was crowned the fullbore rifle world champion in 2015, Emms gave himself a chance of a podium as he rocketed up six spots on the leaderboard with a brilliant effort over 900 yards. Emms scored a perfect 75 with 12 bulleyes – an effort which no other shooter in the field of 33 was able to better. That left him just one shot outside the medals heading into the 1,000 yard range. He shot 72 out of 75 and added another seven centres to his tally, but it was not enough to lift him into a medal position.

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