REIGNING National ISSF Women’s Skeet champion & Rio Olympian Aislin Jones has retained a narrow lead in the domestic event series and secured a place in the international team for the Olympic qualification event in Doha, Qatar and the World Cup in Baku, Azerbaijan in late April/early May.
The Yarra Valley Grand Prix saw a tense battle for the win between top ranked Leongatha shooter Aislin Jones & second ranked, Laura Coles of Western Australia at the fourth and final event of the domestic qualification series at Melbourne Gun Club in Lilydale on the weekend. Day one of competition opened with Aislin holding a four-point lead from the three events prior.
Some context to how tight the competition is lies in the leaderboard for the series, which after the first three events had Jones tied with two time Olympian Chloe Tipple from NZ on 357, followed by Tokyo Olympian Laura Coles on 353 & Brittany Melbourne trailing on 339.
At the conclusion of the day one and the first 75 targets of the 125 target event Coles had pulled that back to an Olympic selection ranking tie across the top three after shooting 73/75 for the day to Jones & Tipple’s 69 a piece leaving the trio tied on 426 points.
Day 2 of competition would see a match of mental will and stamina play out. The pressure of the final domestic selection event and tied scores has to be well managed if it’s not to impact performance. A shift in focus, even briefly to outcome rather than remaining focussed on the next target can easily convert to lost targets.
With the Melbourne Gun Club’s complex tree lined backdrop making target acquisition in overcast conditions difficult, Aislin’s plan for the second day as the light dropped was to trust that all of the work, she had put in at Korumburra Gun Club’s very complex backdrop would stand her in good stead.
“I don’t think I’ve shot at Korumburra in great light yet. The targets are always hard there. If I can shoot well at Korumburra I can shoot well here.” she observed in her usual quiet manner going into the day.
That faith in her process and ability resulted in two more consistent rounds of 23/25 which combined with the three 23/25 from the first day to give her a final total of 115.
Coles failed to back up her day one 73, shooting just 41/50 in the final rounds and tied with Jones on 115 and back to 4 points down on the Olympic selection table with only finals bonus points left to secure. Chloe Tipple took top place out of qualifying into the final with a 117, while the tie necessitated a shoot off between Coles & Jones to determine their starting order. Going just one pair into the shootoff, Aislin claimed her right to the second place into the final with Coles clearly under pressure missing both targets in her pair.
As the light deteriorated in the afternoon all competitors opted for lighter lenses to help dig the targets out of the background, with tints that enable the target to stand out a little more than to the naked eye.
A tough final ensued as the wind picked up making the pairs of targets both varied and unpredictable. Aislin maintaining a narrow lead of two targets over Coles after the first 20 targets of the 60-target final.
Coles couldn’t match the local leader or the Kiwi challenger in the final stages though and finished the final with the bronze medal and four bonus points for selections. Tipple and Jones completed the final targets to determine gold and silver with Aislin claiming the win on 48 to Tipple’s 46, more importantly maybe was the additional six points in the Olympic selections that winning gold provided.
Aislin has been working hard on the physical fitness aspect of the sport and believes it’s standing her in good stead. “I’ve been a bit of a regular at DF Fitness in Leongatha to work on my core strength particularly for shooting. That’s important in skeet so you have good control of the shotgun on these fast-crossing targets, especially in Pairs,” she said.
“Other work I do there is to build fitness for my distance running which is more recreational. I love getting out on the rail trail to Koonwarra with my dog Ted, but while it’s important for running but it’ll help with my stamina and dealing with the heat when it’s hot in Doha, Baku and hopefully Paris too.”
Aislin was pleased but reserved after the win. “I’m really pleased that I backed myself and the plan that my coach Lauryn and I put together over the past few months worked well. It was tough here but that can happen anywhere, and everyone has to shoot in the same conditions,” she said.
“I’ll go to Doha now and to Baku for the final two events and continue to work hard there and stick to our plan. They were the last two ranges I shot last before going to the Olympics in Rio in 2016 so hopefully that’s a good sign.”
The final standings for the domestic series were as follows. Chloe Tipple NZ 479, Aislin Jones VIC 478, Laura Coles WA 472, Brittany Melbourne VIC 446. The top three placed Australians now head to Qatar and Azerbaijan where the points from those events will be added to the totals above to determine who gets the sole place to represent Australia in Paris.
Aislin’s fundraising to support her campaign continues at www.tinyurl.com/AislinParis2024