FRESNO, Ca.; Kern Singh Sekhon of Modesto, California State Skeet Shooting Championship at Fresno Skeet and Trap Club over the 4th of July weekend.
Kern once again rose to the occasion and under the clear blue sunny skies at high noon smashed 100 targets, another perfect score. He was declared the California State Junion Champion in 12 guage event.
His shooting iron “Zamzama” spoke unmistakably 100 times and powdered 100 targets. Kern “Chip” was shooting as a AAA shooter, the highest ranking in Skeet shooting. He is the only junior shooter in California with the top level AAA ranking, one of only three AAA juniors in the United States.
In an exclusive interview with Tom Holliday of the Modesto Bee, the low-key, friendly, intelligent youngster who wants to go to Modesto J.C. and then Stanford, Kern said:
“I want to compete in the Olympics. It’s very difficult to shoot 100 out of 100; and I’m trying to do that as often as I can.”
“It’s a game of concentration, a game of intense concentration,” said’ his father and coach, Dayinder Singh Sekhon, who three times a week takes his son to Stockton’s Waterloo Gun Club. Chip shoots around 15,000 shells a year.
Davinder is a native of*India. Like most Sikhs, he is from the State of Punjab. He earned a masters’ degree in business administration from Central Michigan University and was teaching at a college in Ontario, Canada, when Chip and his twin brother Kesni were born. The family settled in Modesto in 1965. Here Davinder runs a sporting goods import business. These days when he teaches, he has a shotgun in his hands.
He’s very proud of his son, and very demanding.
“T put a lot of pressure on him”, Davinder said, “but that’s what you have to do”.
Does it feel like too much pressure? “Sometimes”, Chip said, “but it makes me try harde”.
For Chip Sekhon, the hardest part of a competition is the beginning.
The first 25, the pressure is on and my heart’s really beating,” he said. “Then it kind! of wears off”.
“If I miss a target, I get scared once in a while,” he admitted, “but I get my head back in it. It’s a mind game”.
It’s a money game too. Chip shoots skeet with a Belgium Browning 12gauge his father bought new for $500 in 1958. Now it’s worth maybe $2,500 and most topnotch competitors have guns in the $3,000 to $5,000 range.
He started shooting when he was 10 and scored a 95 in his first competition in October 1985. His first 100 in competition came last July.
Father and son hunt birds as well. Before Davinder ever knew about competitions, he’d shoot skeet for fun and for birds. EAST BERLIN: Persistent injury has forced the retirement of East German Uwe Hohn, the only athlete ever to throw the javelin more than 100 meters and the man who effectively changed the nature of the event.
Hohn announced he was quitting the sport today, three days before his 25th birthday, because of chronic back pains.
Article extracted from this publication >> July 17, 1987
