McIntosh hopes to maintain gold standard at games

ABERDONIAN Jen McIntosh is targeting a place in Scotland’s Commonwealth Games squad after her double gold medal success in the national team’s recent trip to Delhi for the Commonwealth Shooting Federation championships.

The 19-year-old, from Falkirk but now based in Aberdeen, teamed up with Banff’s Kay Copland to win the women’s three positions (3P) team gold before partnering Huntly’s Sheena Sharp to win the women’s prone pairs.

She said: “Winning the gold medals was almost certainly the best I’ve done compared to anything I’ve won before.

“It was pretty exciting to win the 3P with Kay.

“After that the biggest challenge was making sure I had calmed down before the next match.”

The championships were the test event for the Delhi Commonwealth Games shooting competition and were staged at the same venue which will host the sport this October.

Having savoured success, Grampian Institute of Sport member McIntosh is eager to earn a return visit later this year.

She said: “Delhi was brilliant, the facilities world class, the ranges are huge and much better than anything we have here.

“It was a good experience which will really help if I make it into the Commonwealth Games team for this October.”

The Commonwealth Games shooting team is still some months away from being decided, although McIntosh has already met the team’s qualifying criteria for both prone and 3P.

She is also hoping to qualify for the air rifle and has until July to produce a qualifying result.

She will be in action later this month at the Scottish airgun championships at Tulliallan on March 20.