Toti’s top shottists keep KZN team on target at nationals

For the first time in its five-decade history, the KZN Pistol Association team returned from the National Pistol Shooting Championships with the winner’s trophy.

All eight members of the team returned with team medals, as well as a clutch of individual medals for a total of 65, exceeding last year’s bounty of 57.

“In the individual events, we did extremely well,” said chairman of the Natal Pistol Association, Danie Reyneke.

“In the International Sport Shooting Federation (ISSF), we competed against Namibia and nine other provinces.”

For the first time in its history, in the ISSF events, the KZN Pistol Association claimed second, third and fourth places out of the five individual places awarded nationally.

Danie was second, his son Neil third and teammate Phillip Geyer fourth.

In total the KZN team shot their way to seven first, two second and three third places at the nationals, which took place at the Bellville range in Cape Town from 24 to 28 April.

Eight members of the Poinsettia Pistol Club based in Amanzimtoti made up the KZN team. They are Julie Meyer, Danie, Neil, Kevin Matthews, Gavin Jones, Dave Campbell, Enrico Boaga of Yellowwood Park, and Phillip. Julie was the first woman in 20 years to be awarded KZN colours for the first time at the champs.

Enrico, who turned 79 on the Sunday before the champs started, was the oldest competitor and he returned with two silver individual medals.

Of the team’s 65 medals, 29 were individual medals and 36 were team medals.

Phillip received three individual medals, Neil eight, Dave three, Enrico two, Dave three and Danie an astonishing 13.

Danie also won the rapid fire pistol overall event with a magnificent 539 points out of a possible 600. Competitors had to fire from 25 metres single-handedly, five shots at five different targets in an eight-second window, four times.

Then another five shots in six seconds, four times, and finally five shots in a blistering four seconds, four times.

Incredibly, Danie hit all five targets in four seconds and had no misses during the whole match.

He also claimed gold in the De Wet trophy event, with Neil scoring a silver and Phillip a bronze.

Danie was the only KZN competitor to be included in the prestigious Mayleigh Cup team and he received his national half colours.

KZN was the best performing province out of 10 different competing teams, scoring a magnificent 9,854 points out of 11,700. Second was Namibia with 9,344 and the South African National Defence Force (SANDF)’s A team third with 9,049.

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Competing teams included KZN 1, KZN 2, Western Province, SANDF A, SANDF B, Central Gauteng, SAPS, Namibia, Southern Gauteng and Eastern Cape. Three German teams also competed at the champs.

“Thanks to our main sponsor, Southern Sky Operations and also Vortex, Enforce and Corsair Logistics for their sponsorship to assist us to get to the champs,” said Reyneke. “Without the sponsors, this trip and our success would not have been possible.”