This week, Her Campus caught up with Scottish and British Junior Champion rifle shooter Jonty Barron and found out how he balances representing the university and his country, whilst also completing an undergraduate law degree.
Originally from Edinburgh, Jonty (20) decided to move up to the Granite City to study law. He told us that he was really impressed by the university on the open day and the fact that there was everything you could possibly need on one campus. One of the main attractions for him of course was the excellent sports facilities that the university had to offer, saying he’d heard the facilities were among the best in the country! Now in his fourth year he seems pretty happy he made Aberdeen his choice.
Her Campus wanted to know how he got into shooting as, it’s no secret that, the sport is not very commonly known. He told us that he was introduced to rifle shooting by his older brother Ollie whilst still at school and has been hooked ever since! This was something that his brother probably instantly regretted as a healthy sibling rivalry ensued with Jonty telling us he was only happy when beating him! Through shooting, Jonty has been given many exciting opportunities including the chance to represent Great Britain at the World University Games in Russia last year. He told us that this was one of the most exciting places he’s been able to visit and ‘a very cool experience’. This was a huge multi-sport event with 13,000 athletes and an athlete’s village to house them all. Jonty also got his 5 minutes of fame, appearing on Eurosport in 13 different countries!
Juggling a law degree and competing and training around the world must be quite a struggle we thought and Jonty agreed. He told us that it’s sometimes pretty tricky for him when shooting commitments come at the same time as an ever growing pile of university deadlines. But with good time management and making good decisions he’s able to balance both, telling us ‘there are only so many hours in the day after all’!
Through Her Campus’ expert journalism we found out a secret scoop on Jonty and teased it out of him. One of Jonty’s less impressive (but still memorable) shooting moments was in 2012 when he travelled to Russia to compete in the World University Shooting Championships. Due to a clerical error in his visa which he failed to notice prior to flying, Jonty was stopped at 3am in Moscow when trying to cross the border. There were no translators around and due to the error on his visa the Russian border control tried to put Jonty back onto a plane without telling him why. Eventually after 17.5 hours on his own in Russian ‘no mans land’ with no English speakers he was forced to return to the UK and get an emergency visa. The same day he had to fly straight back out to Russia and compete the next day. PHEW. Sounds like quite an ordeal to us girls who think the 15 minute walk to university is a long journey! This definitely shows commitment to his sport.
Representing the university has its many perks! Recently Jonty won the trophy for individual achievement at the Sports Ball as well as two silver BUCS medals for individual and team events. He’s also made many friends from Scottish Uni competitions. Jonty’s keen to encourage people to try out this unusual sport. Despite the stigma attached to rifle sports in Britain it really is a sport which requires a lot of discipline and control. Shooting is one of the biggest sports in some countries, second only to football, so Britain is really a bit behind in catching on! A downside to the sport according to Jonty is that it isn’t very good for impressing the ladies. However, Her Campus begs to differ. We quite like a man who can handle his rifle… Anyway moving on! On the horizon right now for the University shooting team is the Granite City Challenge with Jonty telling us that he’s pretty confident ‘we’ll smash RGU!’. We’re hopeful too! Excitingly for him there’s also the prospect of possibly being picked to go to Abu Dhabi in October for the World University Championships. Someone’s quite the globetrotter, please take Her Campus with you?
In his spare time Jonty is a keen photographer. He is regularly relied on by his friends to take some (I really mean hundreds) of pretty snaps to remember certain events. Last year he took photos at the Medic Society’s Halfway Ball. Jonty is also an accomplished bag-piper, having won World titles with his school pipe band. He still keeps this hobby up and recently piped at the Annual Law Ball. We asked this man of many talents where he sees himself in the future. Despite his time being pretty filled up by a high pressure degree at the moment he still hopes to represent Scotland at a future Commonwealth Games. And when asked whether he’d be following the footsteps of Harvey Specter at the same time, he cleverly evaded our question with ‘Watch this space’! How lawyer-like. We’ll certainly be keeping an eye on this one.