By Cam Lucadou-Wells
Seventy-six year-old sharp-shooter John Dickens has hit a lucrative streak of gold.
The Keysborough retiree returned from the international Pan Pacific Masters Games with two gold, a silver and two bronze from a gruelling four days of shooting across a range of disciplines.
One of the golds was for the iron-man award for consistency across the trench, skeet, down-the-line and field events.
It’s a task that requires nerve rather than strength, he says.
“At least it shows my reflexes are still up to scratch.”
Mr Dickens competed in the 70-plus-year-old category.
The Masters Games attracted a field aged between 30 and 81 – the latter was placed in a category of his own.
“All he had to do was hit one target in each event, and he got five gold medals,” Mr Dickens said of the 81-year-old competitor.
Mr Dickens hit the Games in peak form, shooting the lights out for a perfect clay-target skeet shooting round two weeks before the event.
Mr Dickens arrived in Australia as a nine-year-old.
Growing up in Wangaratta, he was introduced to shooting by an “old bloke” who took him out on rabbit-hunting trips with a .22 rifle.
He was coaxed back into the sport while mourning the death of his wife several years ago.
Now the Frankston Australian Clay Target Club range as well as regular shooting trips in country Victoria have become a regular occupation.
