The Final of the 2021-22 Individual Championship took place last night at Balerno & Currie’s range. There had been several call-offs for various reasons leaving only 9 attendees out of the 16 expected, comprising three from Watsonians, two from Edinburgh University and four from George Watson’s College. The winner was Adam Dove of Watsonians, who beat clubmate Robin Thomson in the Final. Congratulations to him.
The full results can be seen here, but here’s a summary:
This depleted contingent of 9 had to contest an Elimination round to whittle the number down to the 8 needed to take part in the knock-out stage, and the unlucky loser was Freya Game (Edinburgh University).
In Round 1 of the KO stage, Robin Thomson comfortably got the better of Daniel Gutteridge (the winner in 2015), Rorie Watt (GWC) beat clubmate David Lee who had a bit of a nightmare shoot, Adam Dove beat this season’s Junior Champion Conor Haughney with a better second card and Xuan Lin (GWC) beat Amanda Puchalla (EU) by only one point after a solid 97 on his second card.
In the semi-final, Robin Thomson beat Rorie Watt by 197 (including the only 100 to be shot all evening) to a lop-sided 190 and Adam Dove beat Xuan Lin 194 to something not like Xuan’s best potential.
The final see-sawed with Robin taking an early lead with 99 to Adam’s 97 but Adam closed it down with a fine 99 to Robin’s 96 to win by a point. Robin put two shots on one diagram and so lost out on the re-gauge situation by the penalty point incurred.
I think the all the competitors and spectators (yes, there were a couple) enjoyed seeing the scores appearing on the big screen in the clubroom, an innovation which we hope can continue.
The shoot started on time at 7.30 but went on far too long. We will have to look at the timing and perhaps the format of this Final for the future.