January 13, 2021 5.23 pm This story is over 37 months old

Lincolnshire coastguard selected in GB Olympic shooting team

Good luck Aaron!

A 33-year-old coastguard volunteer in Lincolnshire has been selected as one of the first four shooters who will represent Team GB at the rescheduled Tokyo 2020/1 Olympic Games this summer.

Aaron Heading was born in Kings Lynn in Norfolk and is currently based at Long Sutton in Lincolnshire.

The four-time World Cup medallist will take part in the men’s trap competition at his first Olympic Games, which will take place between July 23 and August 8 this year.

Heading is also a four-time Commonwealth Games medallist, including Gold in Delhi in 2010. In 2018, he achieved the World number one spot in Olympic Trap.

The following year he won a bronze medal at the European Games in Minsk in 2019 and he has a ‘wall of fame’ at his parent’s house in Lincolnshire.

This week he was chosen by the British Olympic Association as one of the first four shooters, alongside Kirsty Hegarty (women’s Olympic trap), Matt Coward-Holley (men’s Olympic trap) and Seonaid McIntosh (women’s 50m 3 position rifle and 10m air rifle).

The quartet will all make their debuts at the Asaka Shooting Range in Japan this summer. It is a particularly great story for Aaron who had considered retiring after being involved in a serious crash.

Just weeks after winning Commonwealth silver at Glasgow 2014, Heading crashed his motorbike and nearly lost his leg. He was in hospital for nearly two-and-a-half weeks and in a wheelchair for two months.

He initially looked at retiring and later became a volunteer with the Sutton Bridge Coastguard, where he still works, covering the marshes and seaways of South Lincolnshire.