The Island Games veteran, chosen this year to be Jersey’s flag bearer, jointly scored the very first medal of Jersey’s Aland campaign yesterday, picking up team silver with Mike Quénault in the 50m free pistol event.
That takes his total Island Games tally to a staggering 58 medals – but he missed out on another in the 25m centre fire event, despite scoring the single highest result of the contest.
Medal hopes were dashed as his partner Derek Barnard suffered technical problems and could only score way below his best.
Ward said: ‘I was standing right next to Derek which is unusual, because you don’t usually stand next to your partner, but it meant I was aware he was having some problems.
‘Derek had some trouble with his gun, and it wasn’t ejecting the cartridges properly, and I lost my concentration for one shot. But we already knew by then that our medal hopes were over.’
However Ward and team manager Mick Radcliffe are supremely confident of returning home with another huge haul of medals, with shooters returning to competition today.
Radcliffe said: ‘We’ve not got quite as many events this year but we’ve got a very good and strong team and they’ve all been shooting pretty well. We’re hopeful of a pretty good haul of medals – I wouldn’t like to estimate just how many that might be, but we hope to medal well in pretty much every event.’
Also yesterday Jersey’s Peter Le Marinel and David Turner placed third in the men’s team rifle competition.
