Young Shropshire Shooter Targets Tokyo 2020 Olympics

Talented Shannon Davies, 14, a pupil at Ellesmere College, has made great strides over the past 12 months. Not only has she been invited to take part in the English Talent Programme in Modern Pentathlon, she has just secured her place into Phase Two of the British Shooting's 'Target Tokyo' Talent Pathway.

The 'Target Tokyo' campaign is a collaboration between UK Sport and the English Institute of Sport to drive recruitment and target focused and motivated individuals who have the desire to represent Great Britain across all shooting disciplines (shotgun, rifle, & pistol) and reach the Olympic podium.

Over 300 shooters from all over the UK attended camps in Beverley and Bisley, Surrey, as they began their quest for selection into Team GB for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. Shannon had to pass through Phase One of the campaign, which saw shooters assessed on a whole host of factors including their performance, commitment, motivation, coachabiliy, learnability, skill acquisition, and concentration.

From these in-depth assessments, British Shooting's coaching team carefully selected which athletes were deemed suitable to progress into Phase Two. "The day was quite intense; there was a lot to do and take-in but I really enjoyed the whole experience. It was so nice to find out that the coaches recommended me for the next round of assessments," Shannon said.

Performance Director for British Shooting, Steven Seligmann, said "The Target Tokyo campaign aims to identify athletes for the GB Academy programme. We selected a number of shooters to take part and it's been an incredibly interesting experience. It's a really exciting time to be able to nurture the talent we already knew about but also new talent that we've unearthed."

Olympic champion Peter Wilson said: "It's a breakthrough for British Shooting to be looking at the talent side of the sport; we've always had a lot of focus on the world class aspect, but nothing feeding that. This is really very exciting; it's the start of a new era for British Shooting and British shooters."

3rd December 2014  Back to News