Ryan Gourzong fires a round as he goes through the Anthony Johnson designed stage, 'Proper Fixx', at the Jamaica Rifle Association Peter Shim Memorial on Sunday. - Rudolph Brown/Staff Photographer RONALD BROWN kept his nerves and fired his way to title honours at the third annual staging of the Peter Shim Memorial, which was held on Sunday at the grounds of the Jamaica Rifle Association (JRA).
The event, an obstacle course for pistol shooters, was designed to test accuracy at a moving target and entailed walking around and shooting targets as they appeared.
Sometimes this would be through a little peep hole and at other times the target could be found taking cover behind a hostage.
There were five stages from which an overall winner would be crowned and a tight battle ensued between Brown and Anthony Johnson, both members of the JRA. Brown eventually got the better of Johnson to put the first tournament of the round under his belt.
The level of difficulty that prevailed in the various stages was magnificent and the shooters stood up to the challenge well, scoring with high percentages of accuracy.
Brown, who was also the tournament director, had this to say.
"The tournament went well. We had all of our highest ranked shooters coming and so the quality couldn't have been any higher," said the man who won two of the event's five stages.
Johnson took the other three.
There were four new competitors in the 35-player tournament and they performed creditably.
Of note, among the new players was Valrie Newman, who also participates in small bore (another shooting discipline) tournaments for Jamaica. She also had creditable performances in the tournament.
As for the champion, he confessed to having not performed at the level that he desired.
"My performance was not as good as I wanted it to be and I suppose that's because of the administrative responsibilities that I had while shooting in the tournament," he said.
"Here at the rifle association more pressure is placed on the shooter mentally because the better shooters have to lead the stages to help with the scoring. Sometimes they have to make judgements on marginal calls and this tends to take away from your ability to plan your tournament and to concentrate," he added.
He also spoke highly of the competition given to him by Johnson.
"Whenever I win tournaments it's quite likely that he'll be right there behind me, he is a good contender," he said.
- Paul-Andre Walker
