A shooter from Acharacle at the south end of Loch Shiel, has been selected for the Highland Institute of Sport at the start of a campaign which could see him competing at next year’s London Olympics.

John MacDonald (pictured), self employed venison dealer and deer stalker, shot his first clay pigeon aged eight.  Two years later his name appeared in the Guinness Book of Records for being the youngest person to ever shoot 100 straight at DTL (Down-the Line). 

Twenty one years on he is British No.1, despite having only competed seriously for the past four years.

“I shot DTL for quite a number of years, from eight until 16 but when I went to college I gave shooting up for a good nine years,” he revealed.

“Four years ago I started Olympic Trap out of curiosity and strangely enough the first time I ever shot it I recorded the highest score in Scotland.  

“I was quite raw, just did what I thought was natural and it worked.  That was me hooked on it then and ever since that it has been up the ladder.”

2010 proved MacDonald’s best year;  he won the British, Scottish and English Open Championships, then qualified for his first  World Cup in Dorset.  The personal best he shot there - 118 out of 125 – was good enough to secure his place in the Delhi bound Scottish Commonwealth Games team.  

After another World Cup event in Italy, his first time competing away from home shooting, he headed for the World Championships in Munich.  This time, shooting a 120, he missed out on the final by one target.   

“I had a fantastic year, probably the best season that anybody could have asked for,” said MacDonald, who says his success is down to natural ability and a steady accumulation of experience (the British team’s coach recently commented that he has never seen anyone improve so quickly in trap shooting).

Life in the Argyll hills brings plenty of physical benefits but living in such a remote area has drawbacks for a top competitor.  The nearest shooting facility with quality targets is some three hours away in Ayrshire.  

If he is to hold his current placing against opponents who have been competing for 10 or 15 years longer than himself, and who have good access to facilities, then he will have to pull out all the stops. He certainly plans to.   

Last week new sponsors, range and clay trap supplier, Laporte, delivered a ball trap, which scatters clays at random angles and elevations from a bunker.  It has made MacDonald’s training field the closest thing to simulating Olympic traps which deliver clays in an entirely unpredictable format from 15 bunkers. 

This month Highland Institute of Sport, part of sportscotland’s institute of sport network, have come on board to provide high performance expertise in the form of essential support services in sports medicine, sports science and strength and conditioning.

  

“Until now I have been covering these areas in an amateurish way, keeping energised and my mind focused, going by what I think myself works and also what I've heard through being in the business,”  said MacDonald.  

“Trap shooting can be a day of three rounds of 25, over five hours.  So you've got to prepare yourself for each round, and once you have finished it you are on an adrenaline and a concentration high, all of a sudden you come down and your blood sugar drops down very low.  

“At the moment I'm going through all the inductions with the institute, the medical side of things and working on a nutritional plan. 

“They are going to help me through strength and conditioning and send a strength and conditioning coach down from Inverness every week for supervised sessions at the nearest gym in Loch Leven, which is an hour and a half away.  

“It is a big commitment but if it can give me an extra target at the World Cup then it will be well worth doing.”

Helping improve his resources locally, MacDonald has assembled a support team around him that fill a variety of important functions.  His father and his girlfriend have attracted a long list of sponsors:  Ardnamurchan Estate, MacAskill Haulage, Crannog, Lochaber Sports Council, Moidart Trust and Sir Cameron Mackintosh.  

Completing the team effort is girlfriend’s uncle, the seven times Olympic biathlete Mike Dixon who helps with psychology and motivation and is the reason, MacDonald believes, he has been able to compete well abroad.  

MacDonald has kept his gun locked away since October’s Delhi Commonwealth Games, admitting he needed a complete break at the end of an intense season.

In mid February, at the end of the stalking season when his focus switches to qualifying for the London Olympics, he will head to Kuwait with the British team for the first training camp of the year followed by the Kuwait Grand Prix.  

“That's the first stepping stone this year for me,” he said.  “That will be the springboard for me to get training and get everything prepared for the first World Cup in Sydney in March. Then I’ve got another World Cup in Beijing in April.”

These events hold British quota places for the Olympics, and two male Olympic Trap shooters will be in the team.  There is a downside:  the athlete earns the quota place for his nation, not himself, and is not necessarily the one that will ultimately be picked for the Olympic team.  

“The first thing I can do is try and win it and gain some more experience shooting at the higher level,” he added.

“Just two years ago my aim was to make the Commonwealth Games, but in the last couple of years the whole thing has gone a bit further than that.  Now the Olympics is quite a good possibility.”     

 

RE-J