17/06/2026
Braunton success in European Air Cup
Braunton Target Shooting Club, a small local club based in North Devon decided to enter into the European Shooting Confederation Air Cup, to give its members a chance to compete against athletes from European clubs without travelling to Europe following on from a news item on the NSRA website.
Although a small rural club, Braunton has always supported its members to take part in National competitions with some success, so a step into Europe was a logical follow on.
There is no qualifying criteria, it is literally open to all, irrespective of standard. The results are posted online and, in essence, there is ranking, so an athlete can see how they are placed in comparison with their fellow competitors across Europe.
The qualifying competition consists of five monthly rounds of a 60 shot air match for Air Pistol or Air Rifle from which the top 8 finalists are selected on the basis of their best four scores. There is a separate Mixed pairs competition running alongside the individual competition.
Given the large number of clubs in Europe and the potential number of competitors, we entered a Mixed team and three individual athletes in 10m Air Rifle and two mixed teams and four individuals in air Pistol just to test the water.
Andy, one of our older members had to dig out his air rifle to pair with a junior member Shannon, to form the mixed air rifle team with an age gap of 54 years but was up for a challenge.
There were over 340 entries into the competition from all over Europe so it was a leap of faith as to how we would do.
Not bad, was the result with both our juniors , Shannon Griffiths (10m Air Rifle) and Mathilda Baker (10m Air Pistol) making their respective finals qualifying in 4th and 6th place respectively. The final being shot over the weekend of the 13/14th June.
We also had some success in the Mixed Team with Shannon paired with Andy Bowman in the 10m Air rifle finishing in 3rd Place and in the 10m Air Pistol, Braunton A Mathilda Baker and Clive Magson finished in sixth place and Braunton B , Alison Nutt and Andy Bowman finishing in 10th.
The finals
These involved setting up a zoom link to the club and using an electronic target SQ10 supplied by Sports Quantum for the final on the Saturday for the 10m Air rifle and with the assistance of the NISC at Aldersley a zoom link using a Meyton target for the 10m Air Pistol Final.
In the Air Pistol final on the Sunday, Mathilda was to the forefront putting in a performance to be proud of which left her in the shot off for the gold and silver finishing in Silver medal position.
On the Saturday, Shannon took part in the 10m Air Rifle final once we had solved a few technical problems with the link finishing in 6th place..
Would we do it again
We will be entering again and hopefully more British clubs will take part. Our thanks to Bob Loveridge and Patrik Johansson and the rest team at ESC for answering a lot of questions and helping us take part.
