By Sahar Foladi
Eighty-one year old shooter, John Dickens comes home with gold medals from the Pan Pacific Games in Queensland.
The Keysborough local participated in almost six games and brought home six gold and 3 silver medals.
Mr Dickens said he enjoyed shooting and anyone of any age can do it.
“In five or six days of the games, in different categories of 12 gauge shotgun shooting I entered in all the competitions that were possible to go into and I shot and I came home with six gold medals and three Silvers.”
The Pan Pacific Masters Games is the world’s biggest and best biennial master games and continues to be held biennially in early November in Gold Coast.
“At the end of the day, they’d come by have a presentation for the day’s shooting. They put your score and your age group, I was the only one in my group, I ended up with a gold medal for every nice shot,” Mr Dickens said.
The gun Mr Dickens used for all his competitions is over ten years old, which he had bought for around $1800 and can be sold for $3000 or more now.
Mr Dickens mentioned other competitors had guns worth $20,000 to $30,000.
In 2018, there were more than 16,000 participants from over 40 countries and Mr Dickens was one of them and returned with two gold medals, silver and two bronze medals.
“From nine o’clock in the morning to four o’clock in the afternoon, you’re walking around on your feet shooting at targets. I think we shot over 1000 targets by usually firing two shots of each target,” Mr Dickens said.
Pan Pacific Games have paved its positions as Australia’s premier multi-sport event and consists of equivalent participation levels with some of the biggest sporting occasions in the world such as the Olympic and Commonwealth Games.
Mr Dickens has been shooting since the age of 16 and his passion has taken him everywhere in Australia from Tasmania to Queensland.
“This last shoot that I’ve been away I’ve got the most gold medals I’ve ever shot,” Mr Dickens said.
Mr Dickens came to Australia with his family at the age of nine in Wangaratta. He married a ‘nice girl ‘and moved to Melbourne to work as a compositor for The Age newspaper.
Mr Dickens is long retired and has lived in Keysborough for 15 years.
Since the death of his wife nine years ago, Mr Dickens said shooting keeps him going.
