Iain Harrison won Top Shot's first season during Sunday night's finale broadcast of the new History network reality competition for marksmen.
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"Iain hits it! That's it, this competition is over! Iain, you have just made history. You are the first winner of Top Shot, congratulations!" Top Shot host and former Survivor castaway Colby Donaldson shouted after Iain finished the competition's final shooting challenge first.
As Top Shot's winner, Iain, a 42-year-old construction manager and former British Army captain from Sherwood, OR, won $100,000.
"Everybody likes to end on a win, this has been a really strange journey for me. Living in a house with 16 strangers, all of us with shooting backgrounds but from disparate walks of life -- so I don't know, words can not express."
Iain defeated Chris Cerino in the competition's final shooting challenge, which required the men make their way through seven different shooting stations and use pistols, rifles, long bows, and throwing knives to hit various targets -- with the first one to complete all seven stations being the winner.
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"I know only one person can win, but I'm going home empty-handed with a lot of time spent," Chris, a 40-year-old military and police firearms instructor from Wadsworth, OH, said afterwards.
"I've been here for a long time, and although I accomplished more than I ever imagined I would, I just lost. It's going to be a long, lonely ride home."
Simon "J.J." Racaza -- a 29-year-old Department of Homeland Security Agent, firearms instructor and competitive pistol shooter from New Milford, NJ -- finished third in the competition.
"Good for Iain and Chris, they're still on this thing. They stepped up today, I fell down today," J.J. said after he was eliminated after he failed to make any of his three shots in the competition's penultimate shooting challenge.
"I came into this challenge as pretty much a one-dimensional guy -- speed shooting, combat shooting -- and I'm walking away as an enthusiast. It expands my horizon, you know that's a good feeling."
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Peter Palma, a 29-year-old plumber and former Marine Sniper from Norristown, PA, finished fourth after being eliminated in the finale's first challenge.
"This competition has been a blast... I'm really excited about what I accomplished here and I'm pretty proud that I was able to stand with some of the best shooters I've ever seen and last this long," he said afterwards.
"I came in here just with the training I was given and whatever I shot by myself and a lot of these guys are in some competitions and it really hones your skills, so I'd like to maybe try some of them some day."
About The Author: Steven Rogers