Great Britain’s disability shooting development squad returned from the first shooting world cup of 2010 with top medal-winning performances.

The eight-strong squad of Brits – which was made up of the GB development squad – returned this week from the event in Szczecin, Poland with three gold, three silver and two bronze medals. 

Birmingham's Ryan Cockbill, competing in his first international contest, put in a superb performance for Britain to return with a gold, a silver and a bronze, while Southport's Jean Guild won gold and silver.   

Cockbill, who is aged 20, won his gold in the Falling Target Rifle SH2 beating team-mate Georgina Callingham into bronze medal spot and Johann Windhofer into silver.

In the R5 10m Air Rifle Prone Cockbill shot 598 to enter the final round in first place but shot a final score of 102.4 to take the bronze. This time round it was Georgina Callingham who finished in the higher position, shooting a fantastic final score of 106, having scored 595 in the earlier round, to finish with the silver medal. Gold went to Jonas Anderson of Denmark, who scored 597 and 104.3.

Essex shooter Adam Fontain took gold in the R4 10m Air Rifle Standing SH2 with his total score of 694.4 (596 and 98.4). He beat Ryan Cockbill into second place by just 0.3 with Cockbill scoring a total score of 694.1. Greece’s Panagiotis Chatzioannidis took bronze.
There was also further medals for Britain in the pistol shooting competitions, with Southport’s Jean Guild taking gold in the P2 10m Air Pistol Women SH1 with a score of 354 out of 400. She beat Denmark’s Lone Overbye and Greece’s Elwni Zampoura, who took silver and bronze respectively.

Guild followed that up with a silver medal in the Falling Target Pistol competition.  
The 10m Air Rifle Standing SH1 saw Surrey’s Mandy Pankhurst just miss out on a podium spot, with her score of 376 placing her in fourth, while there was a 6th and 7th place finish in the P1 10m Air Pistol SH1 for Andy Gardiner (scoring 535) and Adrian Bunclark (scoring 512).

Scunthorpe’s Rob Mcleary, who made his international competitive debut at the event, finished 6th in the R5 Air Rifle Prone with his final score of 695.1 before finishing 10th in the R4 10m Air Rifle Standing SH2.

Head Coach Pasan Kularatne said: “I am extremely pleased with the performance of the development squad shooters at this event, particularly as it’s the first world cup of the year. The team has been working hard in the build up to this event. I would also like to thank all the technical coaches and support staff whose work has helped to achieve these results.”

The IPC Shooting World Cup in Poland took place from March 24 to 28 and included competitors from eight nations including Poland, Slovakia, and Greece.

The full squad for the competition was made up of Ryan Cockbill (Birmingham), Georgina Callingham (High Wycombe, Bucks), Adam Fontain (Basildon, Essex), Jean Guild (Southport, Merseyside), Mandy Pankhurst (Ash, Surrey), Andy Gardiner (Oxfordshire) and Adrian Bunclark (Newton Abbott, Devon) and Rob Mcleary (Scunthorpe). They were supported by Head Coach Pasan Kularatne, Rifle Coach Louise Minett, Pistol Coach James Marsh Brown and support staff Andrew Cockbill, Steven Connolly and Nicholas Badger.