Bay Bulls shooter is national calibre
By Chris Lewis | Vol. 12 No. 24 (November 28, 2019)
Kelsey Power’s sharp eye is taking her places she never expected.
At the age of 12-years-old, Kelsey Power of Bay Bulls was introduced to air rifle shooting through her cadets program. Now, she is 19, and for the last seven years, she hasn’t let her interest in the sport diminish in the slightest.
It was two years after initially getting involved in shooting, in 2014, when Power joined up with the Newfoundland and Labrador Shooting Association, allowing her to pursue her interests even further through the various air rifle target shooting opportunities made available there.
“It’s something I’ve always done, ever since I was 12. It’s just natural to me at this point,” Power said when asked what kept her in the sport for so long. She enjoys the individuality of the sport and the fact that she relies on no one but herself is kind of a relief, especially in a competitive environment.
“It’s all me against me, in a way. That’s what I like the most, I think,” she said.
Her affinity for competitive shooting has taken Power quite far in 2019. She was named provincial champion in this year’s Provincial Air Gun Championships in April, the first of many big moments in her shooting career in 2019.
Kelsey Power, 19, of Bay Bulls has been involved in air rifle shooting since she was 12-years-old, and is now preparing for her first out-of-country competition in Cleveland, Ohio this coming January.
In May, Power earned a 2019 Sport NL scholarship, and went on to attend the national team tryouts in Cookstown, Ontario. There she placed 6th out of 18 women competing in the competition.
One of her biggest successes of the year was her national team trials. Power shot a personal best at 608.7. The number is calculated out of a total of 60 shots, with a 10.9 score being the highest possible grade per shot.
Power made her way back to Cookstown only a few months later in August to take part in the 2019 Nationals at the Pan Am Range, where she came home to Newfoundland with three medals around her neck. She received a bronze medal in the Junior Under-21 competition, as well as a bronze in the expert class.
Due to her skills behind the scope, Power earned herself a spot that weekend in the finals, where she was one of eight women shooting at the range. That competition earned her 3rd place in all of Canada.
“It really means a lot to me. It shows me the kind of growth I’ve had over the past little while, and how far I’ve come … and how far I’ve still got to go with it. If I’m here, then it’s exciting to think about where I could be in another couple years,” she said.
Her goals, of course, lay in the big national and international competitions that Power’s talents can bring her to, such as the World Cup and, perhaps the most world-renowned competition of them all, the Olympics.
“Hopefully in time … that would be great, but it’s probably not something that’ll happen within the next one or two years,” she said. “It’s down the road.” She explained that a lot of the 2024 teams are picking their teams now, giving the athletes approximately four years worth of training before the big competition.
For now, Power has plenty of things on her plate. Earlier in November, she got the call to let her know that she had been chosen to be a part of the 2020 National Junior Team. This means she and her fellow teammates will be headed off to Cleveland, Ohio in January.
This will be Power’s first out-of-country competition, and she said she is a healthy mix of excited and nervous about this big step in her athletic career.
Right now, she is focused on training, and honing her skills so that she can excel in the United States.
“There’ll be a lot of tweaking individual aspects of my position, and the way I’m shooting,” Power said, “fine-tuning everything you know, just to get yourself through to being the best that you can be, making sure I shoot better with my leg in one position as opposed to somewhere else. It all makes a difference.”
