Ashmore grew up in Canberra with Olympic modern pentathlon athletes Chloe and Max Esposito who both represented Australia at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.

When Chloe Esposito rocked the sporting world with her gold medal victory at the Rio Olympics, Ashmore was glued to the television while working in a Canberra café when balancing a Business Administration degree at University of Canberra and representing Australia at ISSF Junior World Cup events.

“The café pretty much stopped because I turned on the TV and I was cheering,” recalled Ashmore.

“It was awesome. Having known her and seeing how much work she had put in, and being overseas (training in Hungary) for so long, it was well deserved,” he added.

When Esposito returned home after the Games, Ashmore met up with her and proudly hung the gold medal around his neck.

While he missed selection for this year’s Tokyo Olympic Games after being placed second during the Olympic nomination trials last year behind his close friend, Sergei Evglevski, in the men’s Rapid Fire Pistol event, Ashmore has his sights on the 2024 Paris Olympics.

“It definitely was not the (Olympic nomination) trials I was after. Sergei and I have spoken many times since then and if anyone was to go (to Tokyo) apart from myself, then I’m glad it was him,” said Ashmore.

“Paris is next so I will be going for it. The goal will be to have more than one quota. But if there is only one, I will be working for it,” he added.

Ashmore has been long regarded as a highly talented marksman and the national selectors confidence in him was confirmed last month when he was named in the National Performance Squad.

Ashmore’s Shooting career commenced as a 12-year old after watching his father James compete at the Sporting Shooters Pistol Club in Majura.

At the time, Ashmore was also playing Rugby at St Francis Xavier College and had no intentions of advancing a career in Shooting, but his focus soon changed.

“I was only going to do it (Shooting) as a hobby because I was playing Rugby as well. But it got to the point where I was going to these small local competitions and I was enjoying it, so I thought let’s see what I can do with it,” he said.

Ashmore attended the 2013 Oceania Championships in Sydney where he caught the attention of National Pistol Coach, Vladimir Galiabovitch.

Two years later, the Canberra National Pistol Club member won Australian team selection for the ISSF Junior World Cup in Suhl, Germany, and reached the Rapid Fire Pistol final where he was placed fifth.

“It was the first time I’d put on an Australian uniform. It was great,” he said.

But he quickly realised he was a small fish in a large global pond when it comes to scores.

“I was getting praised in Australia for shooting a (score of) 530. They were saying, he’s the next one and he’s doing amazingly. But the cut off score for a junior was 565, and in the men’s if you don’t shoot over 580, you don’t have a chance,” he said.

“That was an eye-opening aspect. If I really want to do this, you are not going to make a final with a 530 or something like that you could shoot at a state title.”

In 2016, Ashmore attended more Junior World Cup competitions in Suhl and Gabala in Azerbaijan, where he captured a bronze medal in the 25m Standard Pistol and his appetite for the sport continued to grow.

While he has also competed in 10m Air Pistol, Ashmore prefers the Rapid Fire Pistol event.

“Rapid Fire feels more natural than Air Pistol. In Air Pistol, you stand on the line for an hour shooting one pellet after another. Why not get them over in four seconds?” he said.

Graduating to the open senior World Cup ranks in New Delhi in 2017 was also an eye opening experience.

“That was a learning curve. Even though I was doing the exact same thing, I was shooting with the adults now. It was overwhelming, but good to get it out of the way,” he said.

Throughout his journey, Ashmore has enjoyed support from the ACT Academy of Sport and in 2019 he was one of 10 recipients at the University of Canberra to receive a $10,000 scholarship from the Eldon and Anne Foote Charitable Trust to assist his sports career and tertiary education.

At ACTAS, Ashmore is working closely with Krystle Tate, Head of Athletic Performance, on his strength and conditioning, particularly his core strength, legs, and the connection of muscle groups for overall stability.

While the 24-year old Ashmore has Galiabovitch and Tate as key members of his support team, he admits the mental side of Shooting needs improvement.

“Shooting is more mental than technical. I am not perfect technically, but I am a lot more skilled technically than mentally. If I was able to have the exact same mental and technical ability, I’d be a lot more consistent,” he said.

“It’s about staying in the moment. It’s so easy to be mentally side-tracked.”

While Ashmore won’t be standing on the line at the Tokyo Olympics, he is aiming to win selection for the Oceania Championships in November, and the Commonwealth Shooting and Archery Championships scheduled for India next January where he hopes to win selection alongside Evglevski.

But there is one other line where Ashmore and Evglevski will be standing beside each other on November 13 – Ashmore’s wedding to his childhood sweetheart, Jessica Goulding, where Evglevski is a groomsman.

Along with Perth-based Pistol competitors, Scott Anderson and Bailey Groves, the foursome are firm friends despite their different geographical locations.

“We have a message group and we talk every day. If we were in the same state, we’d be seeing each other every day,” said Ashmore.

But when it comes to firing on the range, the competition juices flow and it’s every man for himself as Ashmore attempts to emulate Esposito’s gold medal winning performance.

By Greg Campbell

When Australian Skeet shooter Paul Adams steps onto the Asaka Shooting Range at the Tokyo Olympic Games in July, he will proudly carry the words of his late grandfather tattooed above his heart while his message will burn in his ears.

It was Adams’ late grandfather, Ian Mathieson, who introduced him to Shooting as a 10-year old boy on a rural property in western Queensland.

As a mark of his respect and admiration for his grandfather, the 2016 Rio Olympian had his words “One at a Time” and his initials “IWM” permanently etched on his body before he passed away in December 2017.

“That was his mantra. He always told me that,” said Adams. “I tell myself that every time I go into shoot. It’s quite funny how many people say it all the time. They don’t know I’ve got the tattoo and I kind of chuckle to myself when I hear it.”

It’s a simple philosophy Adams has followed throughout his career ever since making his international debut when winning the silver medal at the 2011 Oceania Championships.

Adams, aged 28, originally competed in Sporting Clays, but the powerful lure of representing Australia at the Olympic Games saw him cross over to shoot ISSF Skeet in 2009.

Ten years on, Adams will be attending his second Olympic Games in Tokyo and has already experienced the 2014 Glasgow and 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games plus five World Championships.

Shooting the quick-fire criss-crossing dual targets in Skeet requires laser-like eye focus, rapid reflexes, inner calm, and steady surgical-like hands – attributes he uses every day in his professional career as a theatre nurse in Brisbane.

Adams claimed Australia’s single quota selection place on the Tokyo Olympic team after holding off strong challenges from two-time Olympian Keith Ferguson and equal world record holder, Luke Argiro, during last year’s Olympic nomination trials.

Unlike his preparations to past Olympic and Commonwealth Games where he combined high volume training on the range and intensive regular gym work-outs, Adams is adopting a “less is more” approach to his build-up to the Tokyo Games.

Adams was always planning to have a lengthy break from Shooting in 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic saw his break commence well ahead of the planned Tokyo Olympics rather than after the scheduled Closing Ceremony.

“I took it as a good idea to have a big break. After the last selection trial for the Olympic team, I put the gun down. I didn’t open the gun safe from March until the weekend before Christmas,” said Adams.

Adams admits he was nervous when he lined up his first targets at Brisbane Gun Club before Christmas and was pleasantly surprised how well he shot.

“I’m shooting perfectly well, as well as I was before I left (for a break), so I can take it as a sign that I don’t need to overtrain. I’ll just take it nice and easy and gently and keep working like I am and shoot every now and then. I think this will be part of the idea that I will take into Tokyo,” he explained.

Adams, who has enjoyed long-term support from the Queensland Academy of Sport, is currently shooting between 100-125 targets a week but will elevate this number as domestic competitions arise in coming months in the countdown to the Olympics.

“This might be the key. I’ll shoot lightly and a couple of weeks before competition, I’ll shoot a little more intensely,” he said.

Adams’ approach to Tokyo has the support of National Shotgun Coach, Rich Sammon.

Sammon, himself a former high level national Skeet competitor, knows Adams’ ability well from first-hand experience.

At the 2016 Olympic nomination trials, it was Adams who claimed the second automatic Australian team selection ahead of Sammon.

“I stir him up saying he couldn’t go as an athlete but is now going as a coach,” laughed Adams.

“He’s (Sammon) done an amazing job. He’s a really good person to have on our team. It’s a very difficult job and like all any job that you do, some people aren’t going to like you, or like the answers, or the decisions you make,” added Adams.

Adams was also close to making the Australian team for the 2012 London Olympic Games and was supposed to travel to London for the London Olympic Games Shooting Test event but was grounded in Brisbane when struck with a fear of flying.

Following this episode of aerophobia, Adams had his sights on the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games, where he was third in qualifying and finished sixth, and he has travelled widely ever since including the 2016 Rio Olympics where he was placed 19th.

“It’s (Shooting competitions) been the best way to travel around the world. I’ve had so many life experiences in the last 10 years,” he said.

Apart from his two Oceania Championship gold medals, Adams has also earned one silver and two bronze medals on the highly competitive ISSF World Cup circuit in 2017 and 2018.

“It’s fantastic that Shooting Australia saw something in me and still see something in me to keep me on the High Performance Team. And I’ve been able to give them results and some medals back. We’re enjoying the ride together,” he added.

Also enjoying the ride is his mother Sue, also a nurse, who has been by his side throughout his sporting and professional career.

“Mum was the one who took me to all the shoots when I was a little one. I couldn’t drive and she was the one who drove everywhere and gave up her weekends and spent most of her money on me, buying all the ammo and the gun. I thank her and praise her,” he said.

And it was also Sue who assisted her son with practical nursing tips when studying for his degree, while he later assisted her with her Bachelors of Nursing degree after she was hospital trained.

While the Tokyo Olympic Games are on the immediate radar, the 2024 Paris Olympics are also in his long-term sights, particularly as Mixed Skeet will be introduced to the Games competition schedule.

“That will give us an extra day of shooting. It will be cool to shoot more targets. I think it (Mixed Skeet) will be more fun and more relaxed,” he said.

And close to his heart throughout the journey ahead will be his late grandfather.

Since travelling to Suhl in Germany and Gabala in Azerbaijan for junior World Cup competitions in 2016, the 19-year old Rossiter has competed in Korea, China, India, Austria, and Argentina plus numerous trips to various Australian capital cities.

And that tally would have been higher if it wasn’t for global and domestic travel restrictions as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

While the pandemic has severely interrupted training and competition plans over the past 12-months, Rossiter has diligently toiled away under National Rifle Coach, Petr Kurka, either dry firing with brother Jack in the hallway at their Adelaide family home or practicing at the Wingfield Rifle Range.

And all the hard work is paying off.

During the Adelaide Grand Prix late last month, Rossiter surpassed the junior 10m Air Rifle final world record when winning the event gold medal.

Competing in the mixed gender open final against Tokyo Olympic team members, Dane Sampson, Katarina Kowplos and her older brother Jack, Tori (252.6 points) topped the previous women’s junior 10m Air Rifle final world record set in 2019 by India’s Shreya Argawal by a mere 0.1 point.

And Rossiter can thank a perfect final shot of 10.9 to surpass Argawal’s score and defeat brother Jack for the gold medal. However, Rossiter’s score is not an official world record as the Grand Prix was not an International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) accredited competition but instead an Australian Junior record.

Rossiter’s score would also have been good enough to win the 2018 ISSF World Championship 10m Air Rifle final where Korea’s Ha-na Im was victorious with a score of 251.1.

“I am really happy with how I performed, and it is a great reward for all the recent training and training camps we’ve had,” she said.

“Qualification wasn’t good for me, but I was really happy with the final. It was good that I could change my mentality from the match going into the final because you have to try and not bring the bad stuff, or the stuff that you were a little disappointed about with you. It all goes back to zero in the Final.”

Rossiter’s performance last month doesn’t come as a complete surprise within the tight-knit Australian Rifle community.

Her technique and strong basics have earmarked her for a bright future ever since she followed brother Jack and her best friend, 2018 Australian Commonwealth Games Shooting team member, Emma Adams, to the range.

After competing in Junior World Cup events in 2016 and the World Junior Championships in 2017, Rossiter was the youngest Australian Shooting team member at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.

Competing in the women’s 10m Air Rifle, Rossiter was ranked third after the qualification round and finished seventh in the Final.

“Gold Coast was really, really great. It was a huge learning experience. Because it was in Australia, it was like home turf and so much fun,” said Rossiter.

“It was a bit daunting being around everybody that was older. I was struggling a bit with not feeling like I should be there.

“But it was great to have Emma (Adams) and Dane (Sampson) with me. Emma and I were rooming together which was good. I just tried to do my best,” she added.

Following the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, Rossiter headed to the Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires where she reached the 10m Air Rifle final and finished eighth.

Rossiter also enjoys support from the South Australian Sports Institute (SASI) and finds the cohort of SASI athletes beneficial and has formed strong friendships with other athletes.

“SASI is really good. It’s not only the facilities, but it’s super close to Wingfield,” said Rossiter.

“We do gym there and it’s good to talk and make friends with other athletes from other sports as well. I think we all have stuff we can give each other even if some sports aren’t anything alike.

“It’s good to have another person from a different sport to talk to. Sometimes you just want someone to listen to. It’s like a board. They have a different perspective because they don’t do Shooting,” she said.

During this year’s National Performance Series, Rossiter will be competing in mixed gender Rifle events on the same line alongside Sampson, brother Jack and other male competitors.

“It’s definitely beneficial for people at a higher level like Dane, Jack and I. We can be in the same event together and push each other in the qualification and the final. It’s also really beneficial for the juniors because now there is more people doing the qualification,” she said.

Away from Shooting, Rossiter is studying Speech Pathology at Flinders University and tutoring high school students in Maths and English.

“Speech Pathology is a much bigger field than what I realised when I first started,” she said.

While Rossiter missed selection for the Tokyo Olympic Games, she is eyeing Australian team selection for this year’s World Junior Shooting Championships in September and October and the Oceania Championships in November.

And if successful, Rossiter will be collecting further immigration arrival stamps in her passport.

“I like experiencing different cultures. I’m missing travelling a lot at the moment. It feels like forever since I’ve last been somewhere but, in fact, it was this time last year. But I’m hoping we can get around a little bit, maybe by the end of the year for some comps,” she said.

And they will be further opportunities for Rossiter to enhance her growing international Shooting reputation.

By Greg Campbell

Catherine Skinner knows all too well the vagaries of Trap Shooting and the roller-coaster of emotions involved with being an elite international athlete.

One day, the spinning clay discs fly across the skyline as large as a basketball, and on others they seem as small as a pin head. At its lowest point, confidence levels can quickly drain like an emptying tide.

When Skinner first picked up a shotgun as a 12-year old growing up on her family’s cattle farm in Mansfield, 188 kilometres north-east of Melbourne, she downed 10 of 13 Down The Line (DTL) targets.

“That was a peak for about a year,” admitted Skinner.

While form can be temporary, class is long-lasting. An Olympic gold medal won at the 2016 Rio Games is proof of that.

Skinner’s natural ability was recognised by Australian 1988 Seoul Olympian and 1986 Edinburgh Commonwealth Games bronze medallist, Domingo Diaz.

“I remember him when aged 13 saying ‘you shouldn’t be doing DTL, you should be doing ISSF (International Shooting Sports Federation) and going to the Olympics and the Commonwealth Games because you’ve got talent’ and he offered to train us and another boy Nick Kirley in Melbourne,” said Skinner.

“At the time, I was a B grade DTL shooter and I turned him down saying I first needed to get to AA to learn to shoot before I made the transition,” she added.

Within three years, Skinner had successfully made the transition from DTL to ISSF Shooting and represented Australia at the 2006 ISSF World Junior Championship in Zagreb where she finished a commendable seventh.

She attended further Junior World Championships in 2009 and 2010 culminating in a silver medal in Munich in 2010.

2011 saw Skinner attend her first World University Games in Shenzhen, China where she claimed the silver medal, and also graduate to the world senior shooting ranks which she admits was a daunting experience.

“There is quite a gap mostly in the form of consistency. In the senior ranks, you need to shoot high scores all the time and in all conditions. It was quite daunting making that transition, but I am also surprised that I was able to convert it earlier than I thought,” she said.

By 2013, Skinner was quickly rising through the world rankings with silver medals in World Cup events held in Al Ain in the UAE and Nicosia in Cyprus.

By the time the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games arrived, Skinner’s confidence was rising and was further bolstered when topping the Games qualifying rounds downing 71 of 75 targets.

But her confidence flooded to over confidence and her medal hopes came crushing down when eliminated in the semi-final round.

“That was probably the last competition I went into thinking I was truly confident that I can win because I went in feeling completely prepared. I managed to shoot the top score of the day, I was ahead by so many targets, but absolutely self-destructed in that final,” she admitted.

“It was absolutely heart-breaking to go through because there is so much hype behind the Commonwealth Games and such a big event in Australian culture. I got too excited thinking gold was in the bag towards the end but started missing targets and I jumped them.”

Skinner bounced back from her intense disappointment in Glasgow capturing the bronze medal in the World Championship final in Granada.

“That was a well-timed bronze because it was also our first quota for Rio,” she said.

With the quota and her Olympic team selection secured, Skinner headed to the Rio Olympics after a gruelling 18 month’s preparation.

“It’s a long slog. I don’t think people outside the sport really realise how much work goes into it,” said Skinner.

“In order to get that spot at the Games, you are talking about 18 months of high performance. Once you are announced on that team, you’ve got three months of going flat strap. By the time they announce the team, you are already exhausted.

“And through all that time, you are anxious about each performance because of different selection policies. What are they looking for and what happens if you tank one event, or if you tank one and then another?”

And throughout her ongoing training plus domestic and international travel for high level competition, Skinner was head down in her University books completing a Chemical Engineering degree at RMIT in Melbourne.

Because of her Shooting commitments, Skinner took on a part-time University study load and, consequently, a four year degree took seven years to complete which she did in 2015 ahead of the Rio Games.

Skinner said the Olympics were “very nerve racking and high pressure” and was grateful the Shooting competition was one of the first events on the Games program.

A third and final qualifying round of 24 from 25 targets earned Skinner a sudden-death shoot-off for the 6th and final place for the finals round where she prevailed over Cynthia Meyer of Canada.

“That was the most nerve racking experience. I knew I had to be in the final for a chance (of a medal). My brother has a photo of me doubled over afterwards,” she said.

In the semi-final round, Skinner was the lowest ranked competitor and knew she had nothing to lose. With the burden of expectation removed from her shoulders, Skinner completed a near perfect 14 from 15 targets to reach the gold medal match against New Zealand’s Natalie Rooney.

“It was very dreamland. I was off with the fairies and disconnected from being at an Olympic Games and disconnected from the importance of it. I was in the moment and shooting those targets. Looking back, I just wish I knew what I was doing and try and recapture that because it worked so brilliantly,” she said.

In the gold medal match, Skinner’s nerves saw her miss her first target and Rooney went on to open a decisive two target lead. But Skinner gradually clawed her way back to snatch the gold medal with her final shot.

While Rooney completed her final shot, Skinner stood motionless silently contemplating the enormity of what had just occurred. She had just joined Suzie Balogh, Russell Mark and Michael Diamond as Australian Olympic Games Shooting gold medallists.

“That was the realisation that I had won a medal, I’d won an Olympic medal, and that I’d won the Olympic gold medal. And by the time I had said that to myself, Natalie had shot her final target and I turned around to absolute chaos,” she explained.

“There was a heavy dose of elation and then there is that ‘oh no, what have I got myself into” moment because you are flooded with people.”

Skinner won’t be attending the Tokyo Olympics to defend her title this year after Penny Smith and Laetisha Scanlan were named in the Australian team following the Olympic nomination trials last year.

Compared to the Rio Olympics cycle where she was shooting on average 800 targets a month, Skinner only shot around 2000 targets in training in the 12 months prior to the Tokyo Olympic nomination trials because of her work commitments.

Her training has been further limited since the outbreak of COVID-19 last year and the restrictions imposed in Victoria.

As a result, Skinner fired her first shot since the last Olympic selection events last March at the Scalzone Cup Invitational at the Melbourne Gun Club earlier this month.

But while her shotgun has been gathering dust over the past 10 months, Skinner’s Olympic ambitions have not, and she is eyeing an Australian team berth for the 2024 Paris Olympics.

“There is always the next goal, the next dream,” she said.

By Greg Campbell

James Nomarhas always had the genes to be a world class Pistol athlete, but he never knew his pedigree for Shooting until after he captured a silver medal at the 1996 Atlanta Paralympic Games.

In his pursuit to find a sport where he could excel with cerebral palsy, Nomarhas tried track and field and swimming, but without success.

He said he impersonated the “sinking Titanic” when in the pool and tried “chuck, throw and heave”, more commonly known as discus, javelin and shot put, but found the throwing actions placed too great a strain on his back.

It wasn’t until he met Australian Paralympic Pistol and Rifle athlete, Keith Bremner, in the early 1990’s that he decided to try Shooting.

“I never knew there was Shooting for people with disabilities, so I decided to give it a go,” said Nomarhas.

Within a few years, Nomarhas won Australian team selection for the 1994 FESPIC Games in Beijing.

“That was real fun and an eye opener,” recalled Nomarhas.

It was only when his aunty Katina showed him an item from a Greek newspaper from the 1960’s after the Sydney 2000 Paralympic Games that he learned his father Sam won a shooting competition while he served in the Greek Army.

“That’s the weird thing. I didn’t know he had won an Army Shooting competition. He served in a machine gun company but, like many from the War, didn’t discuss his time in the Army,” he said.

Nomarhas earned selection for the Atlanta Paralympics and was thrilled to return home with the silver medal in the Mixed Sports Pistol SH1 event.

Also competing on the line with Nomarhas was Bremner and Iain Fischer, but only Nomarhas qualified for the final.

In the final, the event was dominated by Russian soldier Andrey Lebedinskiy who easily captured the gold medal scoring 683.2 with Nomarhas (660.7) holding off the fast-finishing German, Roland Hartmann, to claim the silver medal.

“I was just so focused. I didn’t know what was going on. The match went for around two hours, but I can only remember about 15 minutes,” he said.

“At the end, I asked my coach how I went. In the greatest understatement of the year, he said I went reasonably well,” he said.

With a Paralympic Games silver medal safely tucked away, Nomarhas was then a member of the 10-member Australian Shooting team for the Sydney 2000 Paralympic Games which also included the legendary Libby Kosmala and the late Ashley Adams.

In a busy competition schedule, Nomarhas was also entered for the Mixed Free Pistol SH1 and the Men’s 10m Air Pistol SH1 events.

Nomarhas’ hopes to emulate his Atlanta podium success in the Mixed Sports Pistol SH1 event were undermined when severely hampered by rheumatoid arthritis at the Games.

Competing alongside Nomarhas at the Sydney Paralympics were Peter Tait and Jeff Lane, with Tait qualifying for the final where he claimed the silver medal, while Nomarhas missed qualifying for the final by just three points.

Nomarhas also finished 10^th in the Mixed Free Pistol SH1 where he missed the final by a mere one point.

In addition to his illness, Nomarhas admits he was unable to replicate the same steely-minded focus that he was able to produce in Atlanta.

“Sydney was the best Games. It was brilliant,” he enthused.

“It was an interesting time competing in front of family and friends. I tried to get the same focus, but I got a bit carried away,” he added.

Nomarhas was selected for his third Paralympic Games in Athens in 2004 and the experience was particularly gratifying given his Greek heritage.

In Athens, Nomarhas lined-up for one event, the Mixed Sports Pistol SH1, and finished 10^th again after missing qualifying for the final again by a mere three points.

After Athens, Nomarhas stepped down from chasing Australian team selection.

“It was costing me a lot of money to compete and it was affecting my family life,” he said.

He continued to shoot on home soil and broke the Australian P1 10m Air Pistol record when setting a new mark of 556 at the National Championships held in Cessnock in 2009 – a record which remains in place today.

Now aged 69 and living in Wallendbeen with his wife Carole, just outside Cootamundra, Nomarhas continues to shoot socially at Young and Harden Pistol Club.

By Greg Campbell

Adam Vella enjoyed a celebrated international Trap and Double Trap Shooting career highlighted by four Commonwealth Games gold medals, nine World Cup and Oceania Championship titles, plus an Olympic Games bronze medal.

While Vella proudly represented the green and gold of Australia for more than two decades in a decorated international career, he could have easily been wearing the red and white colours of Malta.

When he was rising through the world rankings prior to the 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games, Maltese officials learned that Vella’s father was born in Malta and emigrated to Australia when aged five.

In 2002, Malta was to host a competition for European nations and, even though he was born in Melbourne, Vella was a prime target to join their ranks.

While the offer to compete in a one-off competition for Malta had appeal, Vella quickly learned that he would be prohibited from representing Australia for four years and soon declined to participate.

“Once you get released from Australia, you then have to wait four years before they take you back,” Vella said at the time.

Malta’s loss was soon Australia’s gain when Vella combined with 1996 and 2000 Olympic Games Men’s Trap gold medallist, Michael Diamond, to win the Men’s Trap Pairs at the 2002 Manchester Games.

It proved to be the beginning of a dominant Commonwealth Games partnership with the duo capturing the Men’s Trap Pairs on home soil at the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games and then again at the 2010 New Delhi Commonwealth Games.

They were only denied a fourth consecutive gold medal when the Men’s Trap Pairs event was not included on the competition program at the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games.

Following his Manchester Games gold medal, the Frankston Clay Target Club member captured the first of his two Men’s Trap World Cup Final victories months later before winning the World Cup event in Perth at the beginning of 2003.

In Perth, Vella also won silver in the Men’s Double Trap before collecting a further silver in Men’s Double Trap in the World Cup event in New Delhi.

Together with World Cup silver medals in the Men’s Trap in New Delhi and Lonato, Vella’s world ranking in both Trap and Double Trap soared and he became the first person ever to be ranked world number one in both events.

Despite his outstanding performances on the international circuit, Vella’s career was mostly overshadowed by Diamond.

As the focus of the 2004 Athens Olympic Games drew tighter, all eyes were on whether Diamond could emulate the feats of women’s 100m freestyle legend, Dawn Fraser, and become the first Australian male Olympian to win an individual gold medal in three successive Olympics.

Competing in hot, windy conditions in Athens, Diamond could only manage 119 from 125 targets in the qualifying round and was a shock exclusion for the six-man final. Vella downed 121 targets to qualify fifth for the final.

After missing his third target, Vella was faultless for the remainder of the final and leap-frogged into the bronze medal position behind the peerless Russian, Alexei Alipov, and Italy’s Giovanni Pellielo.

Despite his early hiccup, Vella was steely focused and only glanced at the scoreboard with three shots remaining and, disbelievingly, saw that he was placed third.

“I’m looking at the board thinking ‘that can’t be right’. I didn’t know where I was. It wasn’t until the last shot that I turned to my coach and knew it,” he said at the time.

Months later, Vella later proved that his Olympic medal wasn’t a fluke when capturing his second World Cup Final gold medal in Slovenia.

Vella continued his great international form and regained the Men’s Trap world number one ranking in 2007.

But despite this record, Vella was controversially overlooked for Olympic team selection by a single target for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing where Diamond and Craig Henwood were the preferred Australian team choices.

Unbowed, Vella savoured Olympic Games selection at the 2012 London and 2016 Rio Olympic Games but was unable to qualify for the final.

But in the lead-up to the Rio Olympics, Vella enjoyed another memorable career moment when winning the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games individual Men’s Trap gold medal.

He was the silver medallist behind Diamond at the 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games and was placed fourth in the event at the 2010 New Delhi Games.

Shooting in Carnoustie, Vella snuck into the semi-final round as the last of six finalists with Diamond topping the scoreboard.

Vella marched through to the four-man final with a perfect score of 15 targets while Diamond managed 12 and earned a place in the bronze medal match, which he ultimately lost to India’s Manavjit Sandhu.

In the gold medal match against England’s Aaron Heading, Vella was in control until nerves kicked in and he missed three successive targets.

‘I thought I wasn’t going to miss, that was the problem. And when I did miss it put me on the back foot. I made the fatal error of trying to adjust and didn’t attack the target,” said Vella.

“By the time I worked out to keep attacking, I had let three (targets) go. I was trying to find my rhythm and my heart-rate was up, but I pushed through to the end.

“After getting silver in Manchester, it was a long haul to get the (individual) gold. Good things come to those who wait and it’s nice to get this one under my belt,” he added.

Following the Rio Olympics, Vella was appointed as Australia’s National High Performance Shotgun Coach and guided the Trap and Skeet athletes at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.

Vella ultimately stepped down from the post at the end of the 2018 international season and concentrated on his Oz Shooting coaching, corporate shooting and events business.

An international sports career involves many sacrifices and support from family, friends and team staff. And as he proudly views his swag of medals and trophies, it proves that it was all worth the many years of effort.

By Greg Campbell

Here’s a sports trivia question.

Name an athlete who has claimed two World Championship titles 28 years apart and captured an Olympic medal along the way?

No idea? Try Warren Potent.

Warren Potent is not a name which immediately springs to mind in the list of Australian sports greats, but the five-time Olympic Rifle shooter deserves to be listed in elite company.

In an amazing career, Potent captured his first World Championship title in 1986 as the rookie 24-year old member of the Australian 50m Rifle Prone Team, and later seized his individual 50m Rifle Prone World title in Grenada, Spain in 2014 at the ripe age of 52 years.

Throw in his 2008 Beijing Olympic Games bronze medal, four Commonwealth Games medals including a gold, and over 11 World Cup and Oceania Championship gold medals, then you have an understanding why Potent is regarded as one of Australia’s all-time Shooting greats.

Like many other Australian sports champions, Potent fell into Shooting by accident as a 16-year old schoolboy in Sydney’s western suburbs.

At the time, Potent was a rising, enthusiastic tennis player and was invited by a mate to go have a shot at Blacktown Rifle Range. Potent enjoyed the experience and returned every fortnight.

At the end of season Awards evening, Potent was presented with the Encouragement Award.

“It encouraged me to keep going. After playing tennis for so many years and getting nothing and doing shooting for six or eight months and getting a trophy, I thought this is pretty good,” he recalled.

Potent quickly rose through the club, state and national ranks and was named as the team rookie, alongside seasoned international Olympic athletes Don Brook and Alan Smith, in the Australian 50m Rifle Prone Team to contest the 1986 World Championships held in Suhl.

At the time, Suhl was behind the Berlin Wall in East Germany and the memories remain vivid for the amiable Potent.

“It was very interesting. During the Opening Ceremony, you knew who the good guys were and who the bad guys were. Apparently, we were the bad guys” he said.

“It was amazing to go away on my first trip overseas and come back as a world champion and share a world record with two friends,” he said.

Despite his World Championship gold medal, Brook and Smith were preferred selections for the Australian team at the 1988 Seoul Olympics and Potent was named a reserve.

“I wasn’t disappointed. I am a realist. I know how things work. Alan Smith and Don Brook were better shooters than I was at that time,” he said.

Potent then slipped out of high level Shooting for several years to dedicate his time to a business franchise before he was drawn back to the scene after Sydney was awarded the 2000 Olympics in 1993.

“Winning the (Olympic) Bid whet my appetite again and I decided to give it ago. I started training again and started to make teams again,” he said.

In 1998, he attended the first of his four Commonwealth Games and picked up the bronze medal in the 50m Rifle Prone Teams event with Timothy Lowndes.

His Olympic Games dreams were realised at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, the first of his five Olympics, where he finished 19^th.

“I walked away knowing that was the best I could do. I walked away without any ‘what ifs ‘and that’s what I was happy about,” he said.

He was dogged by illness at the 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games, was hampered by the heat at the 2004 Athens Olympics, “not my best experience,” and was out of the medals at the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games.

But later in 2006 at the World Championship in Zagreb, he switched to a new Swiss-made rifle and suddenly a new Shooting world opened.

“My mental outlook was different. I always got really nervous, but this day was different. I shot one iffy shot and I knew exactly why and where,” he recalled.

“That one shot changed my whole mental perspective, and I went through and made the final. After that, I gained so much confidence and, for some reason, I had a lot of fun and I found everything easy for a long time,” he added.

Between 2007 and 2010, Potent was a force on the international stage peeling off seven World Cup victories, including a record-breaking three wins in 2009, plus the gold medal at the 2008 World Cup final in Bangkok.

He also became Australia’s first and only Olympic Rifle medallist when capturing the bronze medal in the individual 50m Rifle Prone at the 2008 Beijing Games.

Potent arrived as one of the gold medal favourites and shot an impressive five consecutive scores of 99 out of 100 in the qualifying round before a perfect sixth and final round score of 100 saw him ranked fourth for the final.

But with qualifying scores carrying forward into the final, Potent was at long odds to claim the gold medal from Ukraine’s Artur Ayvazyan who shot a near perfect qualifying score of 599 out of 600.

“Knowing that I always have been a reasonably good finals shooter, I knew I had a chance of climbing up and getting on the dais,” he said.

In the final, Potent registered 105.5 – the best score of all finalists – to jump into the bronze medal position, a mere 2.2 points from the gold medal.

“It was probably three shots to go when I realised I was coming third. I got really wound up, the nerves really started kicking in, the heart rate really pounded, and the last three shots were phenomenally good,” he said proudly.

“I always wanted to be an Olympian ever since I was a little kid, and I finally got to go onto the dais at an Olympic Games. I think I was the most excited person on the dais,” he added.

Making the moment even more emotional was the passing of his mother Joyce three months prior to the Games after a battle with Alzheimer’s.

“Loved ones certainly help to inspire you,” Potent said after receiving his bronze medal.

“She would’ve probably been my biggest fan, from junior days to now. I thought about her just before I started qualification. I got a bit emotional before I started and told myself to pull `yourself together and get going’,” he said at the time.

Potent continued to represent Australia at the 2010 New Delhi Commonwealth Games picking up silver medals in the individual and teams 50m Rifle Prone events but failed to reach the final at the 2012 London Olympics.

Having made the decision in 2013 to retire after the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, 2014 was a year of immense satisfaction for Potent where he finally captured an elusive Commonwealth Games gold medal in Glasgow before triumphing at the World Championship in Grenada.

“Qualifications went good, I shot consistently right to the end. I just let it happen. In the final I just shot as good as I could,” he said of his performance in Grenada.

While Potent will continue to shoot with the Legion Club in Sydney, his international retirement could not have been better timed with the 50m Rifle Prone event removed from the Tokyo Olympic competition program next year.

“It’s a shame to be honest. A lot of people, who probably would have made it to an Olympic Games,  won’t be able to now,” he said.

Instead they will be relying on World Championships to define their sports careers. And as Potent has shown, Shooting is a sport where time is on your side.

By Greg Campbell

Libby Kosmala is rightly celebrated as Australia’s greatest-ever Para-Shooting athlete, but another proud South Australian joins her in the ranks as among the nation’s finest ever Para Rifle competitors.

The late Barbara Caspers attended three Paralympic Games in 1980, 1984 and 1988 and won a total of five gold medals, one silver and one bronze.

Caspers, a quadriplegic, hailed from Strathalbyn, an hour south of Adelaide where she grew up in a farming community and had experience in Shooting prior to her accident.

After her accident, Caspers reached out to Kosmala and the pair would compete at the State Shooting Park in Virginia, north of Adelaide.

Caspers’ ability to hold the weight of a rifle was limited and she used a strap to assist her supporting arm.

“We had to try and find someone to coach us. Para shooting was very low key then and very different to what it is now,” said Kosmala.

“Eventually, Jim Close, a very good shooter, took us under his wing,” added Kosmala.

Kosmala had attended the 1972 and 1976 Paralympic Games and Caspers joined her fellow South Australian in the Australian team for the 1980 Games.

Held in Arnhem, Holland, the Games saw 1,973 Para athletes from 43 countries participate and they competed in 13 sports.

A crowd of 12,000 people attended the Opening Ceremony where International Paralympic Committee Honorary Board member, Princess Margriet, officially opened the Games.

Interestingly, the Soviet Union was invited to attend the Games but when a Western journalist asked whether a team would participate, a Soviet representative replied; “There are no invalids in the USSR!”

Regardless of the Soviet non-attendance, Caspers enjoyed great success capturing gold in the Mixed Air Rifle Kneeling 1A-1C, silver in the Mixed Air Rifle 3 Positions 1A-1C and a bronze in the Mixed Air Rifle Standing 1A-1C.

See vision here 

Denmark’s Jan Kristensen was the stand-out performer winning gold in both the Mixed Air Rifle 3 Positions 1A-1C and the Mixed Air Rifle Standing 1A-1C.

The 1984 Paralympic Games were held in two separate global cities, New York in the USA, and Stoke Mandeville in the United Kingdom – the birthplace for the Stoke Mandeville Games which was the precursor to the modern Paralympic Games.

Stoke Mandeville held events for wheelchair athletes with spinal cord injuries, and New York hosted wheelchair and ambulatory athletes with cerebral palsy, amputees, and les autres.

A year prior to the Games, Caspers and Kosmala travelled to Stoke Mandeville for a Shooting World Championship and enjoyed great success. It proved to be a clear form guide for the Games 12 months later.

At the Games, Caspers and Kosmala were unstoppable winning eight of Australia’s total of 49 gold medals to ensure Australia finished the Games as the number one ranked Shooting nation.

Caspers performed a clean sweep winning gold in the Women’s Air Rifle Prone 1A-1C, Women’s Air Rifle Standing 1A-1C, Women’s Air Rifle Kneeling 1A-1C and in the Mixed Air Rifle 3 Positions 1A-1C.

Caspers’ final Paralympic Games were the 1988 Games in Seoul.

These Games were first held under the aegis of the International Co-ordinating Committee (ICC). The ICC was accepted into the Olympic Family which led to greater co-operation by National Olympic Committees.

The Seoul Olympic Organising Committee (SLOOC) regarded the Paralympic Games as an extension of the Olympic Games and formulated a support plan which allowed sharing of Seoul Olympic manpower, facilities, equipment, and sharing of key personnel.

A then record 3,041 athletes (2,370 men and 671 women) from 60 countries participated.  They competed in 733 medal events across 18 sports.

The Games also saw the re-classification of Shooting events.

Under the new guidelines, Caspers competed against Kosmala in the SH1 classification. Because of the severe nature of her quadriplegia, Caspers was unable to match up against a dominant Kosmala.

Kosmala was almost unstoppable winning a hat-trick of gold medals in the Women’s Air Rifle 3 Positions, Women’s Air Rifle Prone, Women’s Air Rifle Kneeling (all SH1) and silver in the Mixed Air Rifle Standing (SH1).

Caspers’ best result was eighth placing in the women’s Air Rifle kneeling, however she is regarded as a pioneer of Para Shooting in Australia and in the history of the Australian Paralympic movement.

By Greg Campbell

Pattie Dench has the honour of winning Australia’s first Olympic Games medal in Shooting when claiming the bronze medal in Sports Pistol at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games.

But 36 years later, she has no doubt it should have been a gold medal.

A late starter in the sport, Dench only took up Shooting by chance in 1974 when aged 42.

Then a divorced mother of two adult sets of twins, Dench attended Campbelltown Liverpool Pistol Club where a male friend would shoot while she would patiently wait and read a book.

“I sat there for months until they said, ‘come and have a shot Pattie’,” she recalled.

Despite her initial uncertainty, Dench quickly discovered she was a natural Pistol athlete. Six months later, she was a Master Grade shooter and attended the 1975 National Pistol titles in Tasmania where she finished a credible 10^th.

A year later, she was placed second in Sports Pistol at the National Pistol titles in Adelaide and in 1978 she was chosen on the Australian team for her first World Championship in Korea.

“I was shooting Saturdays, Sundays and Wednesday nights. I just loved it,” she said.

Dench returned to Korea in 1979 with the Australian team and, in the same year, she came second in the world in Air Pistol in Suhl, East Germany, 10 years before the Berlin Wall was demolished.

Dench’s Olympic dream commenced in 1980 when news broke that events, exclusively for women, would be included in the competition schedule for the first time.

“It was only when (coach) John Davidson said to me in 1980, ‘(do) you know ladies are going to be shooting at the 1984 Olympics.’ So, I went out and bought myself a new gun because I’d only been using second-hand guns,” said Dench.

She purchased a new Hammerli 208 .22 pistoI and shot a duelling score of 299 out of 300 with her first use of the gun at Blacktown Pistol Club.

Over the next four years, Dench adopted a single-minded approach to her sport. She was so focused that she often could not remember her drive to the pistol range because she was so intensely thinking of what she was going to do at the range.

Dench was proud of her fitness. She had gained natural arm strength from lifting and holding her twins, Christopher and Stuart, and, Mark and Louise, as babies. She walked 15 kilometres a week, attended her local gym and regularly visited her chiropractor to ensure her right elbow was in peak condition.

“I’ve still got my muscles,” boasted the 88-year old as she flexed her biceps.

In the lead-up to the Los Angeles Olympics, the Australian team entered a training camp at an Army Base in Fort Worth, Texas.

There, she bumped into former world Air Pistol champion, Sally Carroll, who was a US Army Major. While she did not compete at the Olympics, Carroll advised Dench there would be two relays of Pistol shooters at the Olympics, with the first commencing at 9am and the second at 11am.

When she arrived in the Village, Dench was handed a piece of paper stating she would be in the second relay – an 11am start so she thought.

But instead of the second relay commencing at 11.00am, it was scheduled to begin at 10.30am, and Dench was unaware of the new time.

With the range located an hour from the Athletes Village, Dench set her pre-event preparation down to the minute.

She had planned to arrive at the range early, get dressed into her competition uniform and spend 30 minutes listening to the noise of the range and to settle before entering the pistol hall.

“I never saw anyone and no-one came looking for me. So, I walked from the (athletes) tent to the range, and these ranges are big. I came in the side door and everybody’s there, everybody’s on the line and I’m the last one to walk in,” she said.

“How do you think I felt? It absolutely floored me. Then they said, ‘shooters to the line’. I had to re-adjust. I never had enough time to settle,” she added.

Dench lost 11 points in her first 15 shots in precision before dropping only four shots in her next 15 shots to eventually register 285 from 300 points.

Despite her fightback, Dench was bitterly disappointed.

“I was shooting 290 plus in precision. I was shooting the most beautiful groups. I was 63 kgs and fighting fit,” she said.

Then in duelling, Dench compiled 298 from 300 points, including two perfect rounds of 100 points, for a combined score of 583 along with 20-year old Liu Haiying from China, and a mere two points behind Canada’s Linda Thorn and USA’s Ruby Fox, who shot-off for the gold medal.

Dench then outscored Haiying in a shoot-off to claim the bronze medal.

Was it a gold medal that got away?

Dench said; “I can assure you it was.”

Her view was vindicated on her return home when she travelled to compete in Shellharbour, in the NSW southern Illawarra region, shooting scores of 294 and 297 for a total of 591 – 16 points better than Thorn’s Olympic gold medal winning score.

The Los Angeles Olympics were tarnished by the Soviet-led boycott of 14 Eastern Bloc nations from the Games.

However, Dench received the opportunity to test herself against all the world’s best Sports Pistol athletes in Munich in 1985 where she captured the silver medal behind Russia.

“I really enjoyed coming second to Russia,” said Dench.

Despite her fine form and Olympic bronze medal, Dench didn’t seek Australian Olympic team selection for the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games.

“I had no life. No life at all. All I did was shoot,” said Dench.

“I never went to the movies and I had no social life. After that, my life changed, and I went back to golf, played off a 22 handicap and won the C grade championship,” she added.

While her golf clubs are nowadays unused, Dench turned her competitive nature to Ballroom dancing, playing Bridge and producing embroidery works which has seen her named Best Exhibitor at the Camden Show. Next on her agenda is Christmas card making.

Dench has 11 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren, “with another on the way”, and the Pistol range at the Sydney International Shooting Centre, the venue for the Sydney 2000 Olympic and Paralympic Games, is named in her honour.

She has a piece of simple advice for the Tokyo Olympic Shooting team.

“You’ve got to have dreams. You’ve got to believe in yourself that you can do it,” she said.