Jersey’s first gold of 2009: The sport pistol team of Mary Norman and Jennie Ward (00729924)

MARY Norman and Jennie Ward are the proud owners of Jersey’s first gold medal.

The shooting duo won the top spot in the women’s 25m team sport pistol yesterday afternoon, despite thinking they might have fluffed it.

Ward said: ‘I knew when we’d gone through the first stage that we were in line for it, but I had a few misses, so I thought we were probably out of the running for gold. Because of those misses I thought that’s at least ten points down – every point counts – but we ended up winning by two!’

This Games is Norman’s first as a pistol shooter, so she is obviously delighted to get the campaign off to a winning start.

The result is all the more valuable for Jersey’s ladies as the competition is said to be strong.

Norman said: ‘We were obviously hoping for a medal, but I think I felt that the Scandinavian ladies were very good. I know they do a huge amount of air, and for me they were a bit of an unknown quantity. I certainly didn’t think it was a foregone conclusion at all.

‘I was shooting between competitors from Aland and Gotland and I saw that the Aland girl was capable of shooting really well. Meanwhile Jennie was further down the range and I didn’t know that she missed some shots, so I didn’t really know what was going on.

‘I’m glad I didn’t though, because it’s important you concentrate as much as you can. You can get easily distracted. But luckily for us we didn’t have any trouble with our guns, and we managed to score the points we needed, so we’re delighted to have won.’