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| Sunday, 14 April 2002 |
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Inoka who beat the men commended by Vince Pinto of world body Practical Pistol Shooting as a sport was introduced to Sri Lanka in 1978 in order to improve the pistol shooting skills among the Police and Armed Forces. Annual meets were held from 1979 to 1989 open only to personnel of the Police and Armed Services. The National Rifle Association included Practical Shooting in its program and gained affiliation to the International Practical Shooting Confederation (IPSC) in 1990. From its inception women participants in this sport have fared well when compared with the men. In recent years, the girls from the Air Force have been performing well, winning the women's team event at the last four National Meets. The best of them is CpL Inoka Weerasinghe who took to the sport only in 1996. Her improvement was so swift that he was able to win the Women's Championship at the National Meet in 1997 and followed it up by winning the Women's Championship every year thereafter and coming within the first five in the overall aggregate. She has been in the Sri Lanka team since 1997 and has participated in five tours. At the last World Shoot in 1999 she was 23rd from among 50 women. At the National Meet 2000 Inoka shot well in every stage and was second overall to Sgt Sunil Prematilake also of the Air Force. Many thought this was the highest she could aspire to but she confounded the critics at the 2001 National Meet which was held at the STF Range, Katukurunda in February this year, she consistently outshot the men in every event - Standard Exercises, Speed Shoots and Long Shoots to become the National Champion! One person who was highly impressed with her prowess was Vince Pinto, the Secretary of the International Practical Shooting Confederation who was here to conduct a seminar for International Range Officers and officiated at this meet as the range master. He said that Sri Lanka was unique in that the ratio of women to men shooters was higher than in any of the Asia Pacific countries including Australia and New Zealand. He also pointed out that the best woman shooter in any of these countries would be placed no higher than about 25th in the overall ranking. Here at this meet, there were no fewer than four women in the top 16! These girls have the talent, but are handicapped by having to use outdated calibres. They still use weapons chambered for the .45ACP cartridge. The popular calibre used in IPSC International Open Division shooting is the .38 Super Cartridge hand loaded to major calibre scoring. The main difference between these two calibres is that the recoil of the .38 Super is very much less than that of the .45 and the weapon hardly moves during firing. With the .45 the muzzle rises quite a lot with the recoil of firing and it takes longer to re-align the weapon for the next shot. Talking of her success, Inoka Weerasinghe was quick to point out that this was only possible because of the encouragement and assistance of her colleagues at the SLAF Shooting Range, and officers such as Gp Capt. Robin Jilla and Flt Lt. Nalin Galappaththi whom she was greatly indebted. She was confident that given the same type of weapons and training that the top shooters in the sport have, the Sri Lankans both men and women could be among the world's best. The first step in this direction would be the acquisition of at least four high quality Race Guns in.38 Super Calibre with new optical sights, sufficient re-manufactured ammunition for training, and perhaps, a qualified coach, and being among the best in the world will no longer be a dream! |
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