The recently appointed French and Maths teacher at Wellington School, Matthew Charlton, took a team of 20, including five fellow world champions, two Glasgow Commonwealth Games medallists and an unusually high total of eight new caps, to shoot in the Ontario, US National and Canadian Championships.
At Camp Perry, Ohio, USA the team became the first Great Britain side since 1992 to beat the USA on home soil. In Ottawa the team broke the 12-year-old Commonwealth Match record (at 900 and 1000 yards), scoring 1192 out of 1200.
Great Britain team members won 14 individual competitions in Canada, but the key fixtures on tour were team matches at distances up to 1000 yards against the USA, Canada, Australia and Japan, as well as a warm-up match against Ontario.
Great Britain shot superbly to triumph in five of the seven international team matches against very strong and more experienced opposition and were quick to congratulate the USA on their two wins in a close and high quality series of fixtures.
Mr. Charlton said: “I was particularly pleased with the progress of Great Britain’s new caps, four of whom did well enough to be selected for the final team of eight.”
