James Huckle

HARLOW shooter James Huckle was delighted to achieve the London 2012 Olympic qualifying standard in the 50m rifle prone event at the ISSF World Cup in Fort Benning, USA.

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The former Mark Hall pupil scored a new PB of 591 in the NQS – one point above the minimum requirement for Olympic qualification.

The NQS is a secondary level event so it was all about getting a good score rather than a final position and the 20-year-old did that last week.

He said: “I wanted to score over 590 which is minimum qualifying for the Olympics and I was really pleased with my performance. I was really focused on the prone and fortunately I did well.

“In prone all the British guys had been excelling and I needed to prove myself as I hadn’t quite done it before.”

James was knocked out at the elimination stage of the men’s three positions rifle in the USA, but he was not too disappointed.

He broke a long-standing British record last time out at the World Cup in Korea and no-one got near that score this time around. This puts the Harlow marksman in the box seat for British Shooting’s free Olympic place for the 3P event.

“I needed one more point to get through the elimination and then it would have been a different day and who knows what would have happened,” said James.

“Being realistic I have proved myself in the 3P and wanted to show what I can do in the other events and I did that.”

Next up for James is a trip to Germany for the World Cup in Munich which kicks off on June 15. There are Olympic quota places at stake, but the 20-year-old is just looking for improvement.

“It’s the biggest and last World Cup and is the easiest range to shoot on,” he said. “I would like to replicate my performance in Korea, but it’s all about putting in a decent prone score and doing the best in events I’m weakest at.”

James added: “I’m looking at the Europeans in Serbia in August as the best chance of a quota place. That’s the aim.”