Limerick marksman O’Sullivan strikes gold
Ian O’Sullivan, 18, from Rathkeale defeated Jack Wallace (New Zealand) in the Trap Men Junior final.
And making the achievement all the more remarkable was the fact that O’Sullivan’s gun suffered a malfunction in the battle with the Kiwi.
Jeffrey McCready, the Irish Clay Pigeon Shooting’s High Performance Programme Director last night described O’Sullivan as the “best Irish male trap shooter in a generation”.
McCready said: “This is an incredible achievement. Not alone is Ian a relative recent convert to Olympic Trap shooting but he was up against professional shooters from some of the strongest shooting nations in the world like Italy, Australia and the Czech Republic. He is not a funded shooter, he and his family pay for all of this themselves.”
He continued: “This isn’t just any run of the mill competition. Outside of the Olympics, this is the most important and biggest shooting event in the world.”
O’Sullivan, who began competitive shooting aged 12, showed signs of what lay ahead in the five rounds of qualifications.
McCready explained: “He faced 25 targets in each round and shot 23, 24, 24, 24, 24 for a total of 119 — bettering his personal best by three.”
O’Sullivan then progressed through another round and the semi-finals to face Wallace in the gold and silver decider.
“Just to get to the final was an incredible achievement,” McCready continued,” as Ian had to deal with a huge grandstand, cameras and so on — things he would never have experience before.
“In the final the competitors had 15 targets and Ian hit 10 in a row and then suddenly missed two targets in succession. I thought it was just the pressure of the final getting to him as he looked a little rattled.
“But he told us afterwards that he had suffered a gun malfunction and the ejector had broken in his gun which meant he had bother getting the shells in.
“He could have called a gun malfunction but he opted to continue. It was amazing coolness under pressure and he came back to hit his final targets and win the final 13-11,” said McCready.
“It was hard, but I managed to get through,” O’Sullivan said of the gun malfunction. “I will tell them my friends I’m the World Champion. I don’t know if they will believe me!”
So as O’Sullivan and the Irish team celebrated the win, McCready predicted a bright future for a young man whose family is steeped in shooting.
“He is the best Irish male trap shooter in a generation, definitely since Derek Burnett came on the scene.
“The Olympics in Rio might come too soon for him so realistically the focus will be on Tokyo in 2020.”
“I am so proud of him, I really am,” McCready said. “The whole nation is proud of him. It’s a fantastic achievement.”
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