Results

Sorry this has taken so long to prepare folks, events somewhat overtook us here.
 
Again, the nationals ran quite smoothly with UCD Rifle Club's recent upgrades to the range improving the logistical side of things immensely. Scores and attendance levels were up on last year, but this is still clearly an event in its fledgling state in Ireland. Hopefully this will improve in the years to come.

The finals were incredibly close, making the AR40 finals last weekend seem relaxed by comparison. The top four finalists were all within seven points of one another, which in air pistol is nothing. However, despite a massive effort from Raj Raval, Tim Scannell held his nerve and his lead by the smallest of margins, winning the Gold medal for the new Kingdom rifle club in Castlemaine, Co.Kerry, by only 0.4 points.

Raj, because he does not hold an Irish passport, was not eligible for the Silver medal in the nationals; however he will be awarded a special prize by the NTSA for his excellent performance in the match and a letter will be sent to the Indian target shooting NGB to verify his placing in the match.

Joe Conroy, of the Fermoy Rifle Club, at his very first public match in air pistol no less, took the Silver medal home to Cork, beating Joe O'Donoghue into Bronze position by four points.

This was the first 10-shot finals to be held in an air pistol match in the state, and also saw the first shoot-off to break a tie between Sean Baldwin and Roisin Eivers of the Modern Pentathlon Association of Ireland who were attending an NTSA air pistol match for the first time; so a day of firsts all round!
 
Here are the final results from the 2007 Air Pistol Nationals. Names in bold indicate medal winners; names in italics indicate finalists.

Qualifications
1	Scannell	Tim	Kingdom	88	89	86	86	90	88	527
2	Raval	Raj	UCDRC	84	84	91	91	88	87	525
3	Conroy	Joe	Fermoy	92	91	84	82	90	84	523
4	O'Donoghue	Joe	ATSC	87	82	86	86	92	87	520
5	Skelly	Thomas	WTSC	77	85	83	88	78	87	498
6	Eivers	Roisin	MPAI	82	86	84	79	78	86	495
7	Rice	Pat	Comber	83	84	75	84	82	85	493
8	Baldwin	Sean	ATSC	79	85	84	75	83	85	491
9	Lawless	Shauna	MPAI	75	83	86	80	74	81	479
10	Coyle	Natalya	MPAI	72	59	90	69	88	80	458
11	Murphy	Nicola	WTSC	75	78	70	78	84	67	452

Finals
				Qual	Final	Total
1	Scannell	Tim	Kingdom	527	91	618
2	Raval	Raj	UCDRC	525	92.6	617.6
3	Conroy	Joe	Fermoy	523	86.2	609.2
4	O'Donoghue	Joe	ATSC	520	85.2	605.2
5	Skelly	Thomas	WTSC	498	86.7	584.7
6	Rice	Pat	Comber	493	79.4	572.4
7	Eivers	Roisin	MPAI	495	76.6	571.6
8	Baldwin	Sean	ATSC	491	80.6	571.6

Photos from the day are being kindly hosted by the Wilkinstown Target Shooting Club here until some technical issues with our website are sorted out.

 
Some highlights from the day:



Equipment Control setup



Sean Baldwin shooting during the qualification round



Finals underway



Finals underway, with Geoff Cooney as Chief Range Officer with two ladies from the MPAI helping out




A tie? Where's section 8.14? Argh!




(we did eventually find the rules for the shoot-off!)




The finalists




The ladies from the Modern Pentathlon Association of Ireland