These Championships were held on the Trentham range in New Zealand as part of an extensive program which commenced on January 25, 2019 with the NZRA Championships and concluded on February 10th with the International Palma Teams matches.

Competitors representing New Zealand, Australia, the USA, Great Britain, South Africa, Canada and the Channel Islands were participating in these Championships which indicates the world-class level of fullbore target shooters involved.

Included in the program was the World Veterans Teams Championships, the World Under-25 Teams Championships and the World Under-21 Teams Championships. The Australian Teams displayed their awesome talents by winning all of these Championships. Natives Club members John Caske was manager for the Veterans Team and Josh Pratt was a shooter in the Under-21 Team.

In the individual IWLRC, Natives Club members displayed their skills with Don Thompson winning the Gold Medal for the 1000 yards match on Day 1 while Tim Berry won the Gold Medal for the 1000 yards match on Day 2 as well as the Gold Medal for the 800 yards match on Day 3.
Josh Pratt was the standout performer when the 15 year old again showed his brilliant skills by finishing 16th in the ILRWC and won the Under-21 Aggregate. Just remember that this was against the very best fullbore target shooters in the world!

The final event on the ILRWC program was the prestigious Palma Teams matches contested by teams of 16 from each of the countries mentioned above. The Palma consists of 15 shots at 800, 900 and 1000 yards fired on each of two consecutive days. The Palma match originated in the USA in 1876 as a celebration of the independence of that country and is now held every four years with one of the competing countries hosting the event. The Palma was last held in Australia at the Belmont range in 2011.

Australia won the Palma Teams match this year in convincing style by 77 points from arch-rivals, Great Britain, with the USA a further 19 points back. This result is the culmination of the efforts put in by the team over recent years in preparing for this major competition!

Results from all the NZRA, International teams and ILRWC matches are available on the NZRA website at https://www.lrwc2019.nz/results-2/