Sharpshooting female soldier beats best Brits but fails to take home top Queen's Medal

Despite sharpshooting her way to the highest score in the prestigious Queen's Medal competition, a female soldier has come away empty-handed.

Afghanistan War veteran Sergeant Tatyana E Danylyshyn, of the Canadian Scottish Regiment, of Victoria, British Columbia, scored 1,012 points.

But this year the Queen's Medal was awarded to Army Reservist Corporal Johnny Moore with a score of 1001 points (the highest scoring British competitor).

"To date there has never been a female holder of the Queen's Shot of the Army Reserve," said Chris Fletcher, a senior press officer for the British Army.

The result is not due to sexism but the fact that Danylyshyn is Canadian.

Each year roughly 1,300 of the best shots in the world gather at the Bisley-Pirbright range complex in Surrey to compete for the top shooting honour in the Queen's Shot of the Army Reserve as part of the Joint Service Central Skill-at-Arms Meeting.

Their skills are tested at shooting short range, long range, timed fire, and other scenarios.

Competitors include military members from France, the US, UK, and commonwealth nations like Canada. Foreign nationals, however, are invited to compete "on an honours-only basis," said Fletcher. He could not say whether Danylyshyn is the first woman with such a high score because the performance of foreign nationals is not recorded.

That didn't stop Sgt. Danylyshyn's father David Danylyshyn from trumpeting his daughter's high score online. "I taught all my kids to shoot, read, and swim before they started kindergarten," he wrote in a letter to Canadian gun advocacy website TheTruthAboutGuns.com. "She won't get the medal herself, though, because...colonial."

The Canadian Military run a similar competition to compete for their own version of the Queen's Medal and Britons participate under the same honours-only rules. "They too, on occasions, have produced the highest score," said Fletcher.