Forres Academy pistol shooting star Lucy Evans is a national champion who is aiming for the Olympics one day
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A FORRES shooting star has the Olympics in her sights after claiming a national schools title.
Lucy Evans (16) was victorious in the British Shooting Schools Pistol Championships national
finals in Stoke Mandeville.
The Forres Academy sixth-year pupil held her nerve in a dramatic 10m air pistol final round shoot-out to win the overall championships.
“On the very last shot myself and another girl were tied,” she explained. “I shot a 9.4 and she shot a 9.3 so I won by 0.1.
"It was the most pressure I have ever felt in shooting.”
Lucy is a sporting all-rounder like her mum Siobhan, who was an elite triathlete who competed internationally for Great Britain.
Lucy started in the sport of tetrathlon, which combines shooting, swimming, running and riding and is run through the pony club.
She soon realised that shooting was her strongest discipline but didn’t clock up as many points to make an overall impression, so decided to drop the other events and just participate in pistol shooting.
Signing up for her local Forres Smallbore Air Rifle and Pistol Club, she began winning competitions and caught the attention of the British Shooting Development Academy, who gave her a place on their Pistol Pathway project.
Along with fellow Forres Academy pupil Conall Evans, she has progressed to the second tier of the Scottish Target Shooting junior development programme.
She is grateful to the support of her Forres club coach Mark Joyce, Pistol Pathway mentor Iain Aberdeen and STS coach Sonal Gyorik Ramendra, as well as the backing given to her by Forres Academy while she combines sport with her education.
Pistol Pathway training takes Lucy to Newcastle once a month while she regularly travels to Edinburgh and Carlisle for Scottish team training.
But the active schoolgirl also loves swimming and running to keep fit, which put her in good stead for a shot at a second sport which is growing in popularity across the world.
Laser run challenges competitors’ speed and accuracy as they have to fire shots at a target to gain five green lights in 50 seconds, before running to the next station for more shooting.
Lucy took part in the world laser run championships in Budapest last year, before discovering a hip injury which prevented her from running for months. “I just did it last year and this year I am just focusing on pistol shooting until I get back to fitness and running because I haven’t been doing it for a while.”
The teenager would love to compete in the Olympics one day and said: “My ultimate aim would be the LA (2028) or Paris (2024) games but it is just about working my way up by competing in more minor competitions and gaining more experience in the international field first, and then seeing how things pan out and take everything that comes.”
