HELEN Johnson never thought shooting would take her outside of Orange, let alone overseas.
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But the quietly spoken international technical official will fly out for Glasgow, Scotland, in July to take up a role as a shooting official at the 2014 Commonwealth Games.
It’s the second time Johnson has assumed an official role for a Commonwealth Games following her post as the gear manager for all shooting events in Melbourne in 2010, a role she shared with her husband Brian.
Going it alone in 2014, this year’s games will be extra special for a different reason.
“On my bucket list was to do an international event but overseas,” Johnson said.
“And it just happens to be the Commonwealth Games. I’d love to put my name down for the Olympics too, in Rio.”
The 47-year-old will sit on the classification jury which looks after all the scoring for the shooting and small bore rifle events in Glasgow
“On my bucket list was to do an international event but overseas. And it just happens to be the Commonwealth Games. I’d love to put my name down for the Olympics too, in Rio"
“Because it’s electronic targets, we’re overseeing the computer scoring system and looking for any errors with the computer,” the Orange Pistol Club member explained.
“If the competitors’ score shows up as a zero and it’s challenged, we’ll look at the print outs to see when the shot was fired and why it didn’t register.”
A qualified international judge, Johnson was one of three Australians picked to fly to Scotland for the games.
An avid lover of all things pistol shooting for 40 years, Johnson was predicting her trip to Scotland to be a memorable one, with Australia set to battle it out with Commonwealth shooting powerhouse India for the gold medals.
She’ll be cheering on the Australians, to a degree.
“But I’m impartial. I’m representing Australia but I’m not ... if that makes sense,” she laughed.
Johnson will depart for Scotland in July.
The first official date for the shooting events in Glasgow is July 21.