Meet woman eyeing Olympic history
Great Britain’s world No1 tells Pippa Field she was once adamant she would not be an Olympic shooter
‘The blue hair is staying for Tokyo. It’s my favourite colour. And it will go more British blue by then’
For a 23-year-old who can lay claim to being world champion, world No 1, joint world record holder and a genuine British Olympic medal contender in Tokyo this summer, rifle shooter Seonaid McIntosh took her time finding her sporting range.
Initially it was the result of the then-spirited teenager’s determination to rebel against being part of arguably Scotland’s most successful shooting family. Forget following in the footsteps of a sister, mother and father who had all represented their country at Commonwealth level, playing drums in the school pipe band was her target.
And yet when she eventually conceded defeat and picked up a gun, it was growing pains of a physical kind that nearly shot her back down.
“I started shooting at 16 and then
I got diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis at 17,” explains McIntosh, hours before flying to South Africa for a training camp ahead of the European Championships in Poland this month.
“I had lots of flare-ups in my joints. When I was younger it was mostly my knees. They would swell up and I couldn’t bend or straighten my knee, it was kind of locked halfway in between. So I couldn’t shoot as I couldn’t get in the positions.
“We had someone else on the team who had arthritis and his was a lot worse than mine and he struggled to do a lot of things. I was thinking: ‘Is that what it is going to become for me? Is it going to stop me from continuing to shoot?’ ”
Doctors initially suspected juvenile arthritis and ran tests.
McIntosh was reduced to using crutches when her joints got really bad, all a far cry from her current standing as a real contender to become the first British female to climb the Olympic shooting rostrum, after the
46 medals won previously by the country’s men.
“It was really difficult at school to carry a rucksack with books around when you’re on crutches at the same time. A lot of my classes were on the top floor, I went to an old school and there were no lifts,” she recalls. Eventually rheumatoid arthritis was diagnosed, caused by a stomach infection aged 16 that activated a particular gene. But even then it still took a period of trial and error with medication to reach today’s point where the Scot is able to keep at bay the symptoms through weekly medication.
“Looking back at the start of my shooting, it probably did affect me because a lot of my proprioception was off, I lost a lot of muscle mass in my legs. All that sort of stuff I had to relearn after the arthritis got under control,” she says.
“A lot of people see it as a disease where you have to stop doing stuff because you have to protect your joints. But from my own experiences you have to live your life. Sure, there are things you have got to be wary of and work around, so I get fatigued quite a lot as it’s a medication side effect, but it’s not something I let influence my life.”
McIntosh is firmly in Olympic countdown mode. Great Britain will not announce their shooting team until June but she is a shoo-in for the Games in July. It was at the 2018 World Championships that McIntosh earned Britain a quota place with a fourth-place finish in the 50metre rifle threepositions competition. Three days earlier she had become world champion in the non-Olympic 50m rifle prone discipline. According to her, “a good performance at the time” but things have “just got better and better” since. She is not wrong.
Last year McIntosh won three World Cup medals (including the first World Cup gold by a British woman), became the first British woman to rank world No1 for the 50m rifle threeposition event (the event she is principally targeting in Tokyo) and was crowned European champion in the 300m rifle prone event (a nonOlympic discipline) with a world record-equalling score.
Records and results are attractive but those in charge at British Shooting should be keeping not just their fingers but their toes crossed for McIntosh to succeed in Tokyo, where minority sports get their moment in the Olympic spotlight. In a sport traditionally viewed as male and for the older generation – and with competition rules that limit individuality – McIntosh has the potential to end up as the poster girl.
Non-shooting discussions with her range from the first-class degree in electrical engineering gained last year, through her love of music to a pair of customised Harry Potter shoes. There is also the small matter of the bright blue hair. “I got a new shooting suit this year in the Olympic colours, red, white, blue. The hair is definitely staying for Tokyo. It’s my favourite colour. And it will go more British blue by then.” She stops briefly before laughing: “Shooters listening to this will be rolling their eyes.”
And to think that had it not been for London 2012 and the performance of sister Jennifer, the wider world might not be treated to such individuality.
“You can ask my friends at school, I was absolutely adamant I wasn’t going to be an Olympic shooter.
‘I don’t want to do it, Jen does it, it’s
Jen’s thing,’” she recalls, an example of the much-trotted out “Inspire a Generation” motto of London.
“If 2012 hadn’t been in London I don’t think my story would be the same. I’d heard about shooting, my family would talk about it at the dinner table, and I shot a bit at school – but seeing it was different.”
Her decision must have been music to the ears of mother and four-time Commonwealth Games medallist Shirley and father Donald, also a former international shooter. The latter insists his daughters were free to pick their pastimes. But there will be pride in the way things panned out.
Originally he coached Jennifer, as she attended two Olympic Games before retiring in 2018 as the most decorated female medallist in Scottish Commonwealth Games history with five – an accolade her mother previously jointly held. The sisters shot together internationally too, with the 2017 European Championships, in which they helped Great Britain to 50m rifle three-positions gold, a particularly proud moment.
Now Donald concentrates his responsibilities on his youngest child.
“For us, it’s great,” insists his world-beating daughter. “We don’t really fight often, like occasionally if one of us is tired or hungry, but it’s barely anything. We know how to bounce off each other. It just works.”