Scots shooters on target with trple medal haul

Fourth in the Commonwealth skeet four years ago in Delhi, 34-year-old shooting instructor Christie stepped up in the cauldron of a new high-pressure six-man shoot-out just 15 minutes from his home on the family range near Dundee. McLeod and Shaw were defending silver medallists from 2010, with 46-year-old Shaw contesting his fifth Commonwealth Games.

Christie works as a shooting coach at Auchterhouse County Sports, and all his family, friends, and neighbours were in the crowd as he held his nerve through a tense 16-shot final to claim a head-to-head gold-medal shoot-out with Georgios Achilleos. England's Rory Warlow took bronze.

"At Delhi it would have been good to win a medal, but at a home Games it's brilliant," said Christie. "I've shot this final format a bit, but not as much as the rest, and not in big competitions."

Ultimately, he was overwhelmed, missing 10 of his last 13 clays. His Cypriot rival missed just one.

"My head just went," confessed Christie. "You could bet money against missing like that. It's not sunk in - gold would have been brilliant, but silver is just as good." Between shots, he repeatedly sat down, resting his back following injury two years ago. He added: "I don't shoot every day. If I trained once a week I'd be delighted."

England-based McLeod (50) and Shaw (46) were fourth before the final 15 shots at 1000 yards. England's Parag Patel and David Luckman (595.77) took gold ahead of Canada (592.54) with the Scots on 590.65.

The contest was delayed by mist, torrential rain and police having to remove people from the beach behind the ranges.

"The winners shot out of their skins," said Shaw, who faces his partner in the individual event today. "Fullbore is battling the elements and a lot can be out of your control. We were shooting against the best in the world."

The bull at 1000 yards is as big as a dinner plate or long playing record. In the air rifle it is 0.5 millimetres, roughly the size of the full stop at the end of this sentence.

The latter was a spot too far for Jennifer McIntosh. The family of the Delhi golden girl endured an emotional roller-coaster, which ended in tears for a woman weaned on and habituated to success.

McIntosh, 23, won two golds and a bronze in Delhi, the best ever by a Scottish woman, but this was a relatively new discipline for her.

When she walked tearfully off the range she was consoled by her coach, Sinclair Bruce, team manager and father Donald, her mother, Shirley (gold medallist 20 years ago), fiancé Andrew, and her grandmother.

"My mum and dad reminded me that they both loved me, even if I didn't win a medal, which was nice to hear," she said. Shirley added it was "worse watching than participating".

One of Jenn's two golds in 2010, and a bronze, came in now abandoned pairs events. Tomorrow's [Mon] 50m prone and 50m three-position on Tuesday are her strongest forte.

Jenn saw her 18-year-old sister, Seonaid, fail to qualify for the final of the 10-metre air rifle, though she held off, by one place, the challenge of New Zealand's Jenna MacKenzie who is coached by Alister Allan, Scotland's most prolific Commonwealth medallist and former coach of her parents.

Jenn reached her first major championship air rifle final (she was 36th in the Olympics) having placed sixth in the 40-shot qualifying. A partisan home crowd cheered every round as the top eight shot for the medals, with all previous points discarded. But gone was the nerveless teenager of Delhi.

Here she survived only the opening round, eliminated in the next, seventh and choking back tears, worried she had let people down.

"It was just nerves," she said. "I just didn't have it today. The qualifier was hard work. I did enough to get through, but it wasn't pretty.

"I fought for every point. It's definitely the weakest of my three events. I'm just disappointed for everyone."

Caroline Brownlie, David Owen, and Alan Ritchie all failed to qualify in the men's and women's 25m pistol.