SEONAID McIntosh had been gunning for some Commonwealth glory to call her own for a while now. Not only was the 22-year-old baby of Scotland’s most illustrious shooting dynasty reared by two previous Commonwealth Games team members, she has had to watch quietly while her big sister Jen rack up five medals across 2010 and 2014 to add to the four which her mum Shirley claimed for the country during the late 1990s.
Having Commonwealth glory in your crosshairs and hitting the target are two different things, but yesterday was the day she followed in the family line. Competing in her second event of the games, the 50m rifle prone, her final score of 618.1 was good enough for third place behind Martina Veloso of Singapore (621.0) and Tejaswini Sawant of India (618.9). Jen, who took gold in this event in Delhi in 2010 and bronze at Glasgow 2014, finished back in eighth with a score of 612.9 but the final result continued Scotland’s run of winning a medal in the women’s prone at every event since the discipline was introduced in 1994. “It’s pretty cool,” said Seonaid afterwards. “I’m on the table now in terms of family medals. Before coming to Australia I’d been thinking about it a bit. Obviously, there are no pairs events and most of mum and Jen’s medals are in pairs events. But this is pretty cool.”
Conditions at the Belmont Shooting Centre weren’t exactly easy. But McIntosh Junr, as is her wont, take her time, made her adjustments and the rest is history. By the time you read this, she may even have added a second Commonwealth medal, in her favourite event, the 50m rifle three positions. “The wind was a bit weird today,” she said. “It wasn’t as strong as it looked. I’m always quite a slow shooter. As I primarily train air rifle back home I was thinking there wasn’t enough time but in fact there there was plenty. I’m really excited about that [the three positions]. It’s my best event so hopefully there will be good things there too.”
By the standards of Team Scotland at this games, this was something of a slow day. A 34th medal of the games came in the women’s triples bowls after the Scottish trio reached a final against host nation Australia with a 19-7 win over Canada then overcame xxxxx. Isla Short finished fifth and Grant Ferguson finished ninth in the mountain biking. Wrestlers Ross Connelly, Alex Gladkov, and Viorel Etko all suffered first round defeats, with 2014 bronze medallist Etko lasting only a round. Kirsty Gilmour has a badminton semi-final to look forward to (Update).
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