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Shooting competitors not quite on mark
New team of marksmen aims to get more practice in for next time

Shawn Giilck
Northern News Services
Published Thursday, May 2, 2013

INUVIK
Inuvik's new team of marksmen didn't place high in the territorial championships last month, but seeds are planted for a better team down the line.

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Lane Voudrach of the Inuvik Top of the World Sportsmen's Club shooting team was one of the competitors at the Northwest Territories Federation of Shooting Sports Territorial Airgun Competition in Yellowknife in April. - Shawn Giilck/NNSL photo

The Top of the World Sportsmen Club sent five members to the Northwest Territories Federation of Shooting Sports Territorial Airgun Competition in Yellowknife in April after about eight weeks of training. While the enthusiasm was there, the scores weren't.

"Overall, we did as well as expected," said spokesperson and competitor Chris Garven. "Overall, it was not bad, but not great for the Inuvik shooters. It's about as well as we had hoped to do in our first competition with only eight weeks training, considering the folks at Yellowknife had been shooting for probably a few times a week for six to eight months."

The three youngsters the club sent down – Delaney Arey, Dylan Charlton and Lane Voudrach – had their first taste of big-time competition, he said, as did the second adult shooter, Steve Baryluk.

All of the team, except Garven, were recruited during a joint program for shooting sports with the Inuvik Youth Centre in February.

Garven said the young shooters were enrolled only in the rifle category, so as not to overwhelm them with too much to do. Arey placed 13th, Voudrach placed 12th and Charlton placed 11th. Garven placed 10th in rifles and sixth in pistols, and Bartluk placed ninth in rifles and fifth in pistols.

"We wanted to concentrate on just one discipline for them," Garven said. "They were at the bottom of the pack, but we did have at least two Olympic hopefuls (on other teams) shooting, so we probably would have placed a little better if we didn't have them shooting."

Garven said he was disappointed with his own results in both disciplines. He competed in both the air rifle and handgun contests. Baryluk beat him in both with scores of 382 in rifle and 477 in pistol.

Garven scored 451 out of 600 in pistol shooting but was hoping for something around the 500-point mark. His score in the rifle contest was 322.

"The top scorer in pistol was 542 in the finals, to give you some idea," he said. "So I was about 90 off the top score. In 60 shots, that's not bad."

Garven said he and the other members will continue to practice and order some new guns.

"Overall I'm happy and the program really seems to be taking hold," he said.

The next competition on the club's radar is the Silhouette championships in June, Garven said. He added the club will be sending two or three members down to it, although it's uncertain whether both senior and junior shooters will go.

"We haven't really had much time to practice with the juniors, so we'll figure it out then."

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