Join the Ladies Olympic Skeet Super Squad
Ladies, your country needs you. British Shooting is searching for rising stars to join its new Olympic Skeet Super Squad, so now’s the time to grab your gun and vest, urges
Loo rolls, ventilators, vaccines, PPE, bicycles, flour, hand sanitiser, gym equipment, guitars, daffodils, political competence. And female Olympic Skeet athletes. The past year has been defined by COVID, Brexit and, yes, shortages. Thankfully, the loo roll shortage was just a flash in the pan and nobody has yet bothered to form an orderly queue for political competence because the wait time is too long. You may not take delivery of that rad full sus mtb (aka a bicycle, to the rest of us) until the autumn, but we do have some good news. The female Olympic Skeet athlete shortage could be over by July, thanks to British Shooting’s Nicki Wakeford.
It’s encouraging that more women are breaking into the male-dominated sport of clay shooting, but for some reason this growth is not filtering through to Olympic Skeet stands fast enough, leading British Shooting to declare a shortage of female athletes.
“Until recently, there have only been a handful of female Olympic Skeet shooters on the British Shooting Pathway,” confirmed Talent Pathway coach Nicki Wakeford. “The numbers have increased in the past few years, but there are still fewer than 20 ladies shooting competitively, which is why I am creating the Ladies Olympic Skeet Super Squad.
WHAT IS OLYMPIC SKEET?
Olympic Skeet uses the familiar two-house layout but the sequence is different to English or American (NSSA) Skeet and the targets are faster. Significantly, athletes must call for the targets with the toe of the stock level with the natural drop of the elbow (indicated by the individually fitted yellow ISSF strip), roughly just above the hip.
To make things more interesting, the targets are released via a random timer, with anything from a zero to three-second delay. It’s a little bit like a white-knuckle ride – fast, fun and hairy.