Australian shooter Penny Smith won the bronze medal in Women’s Trap this morning at the Paris Olympic Games, after almost being pushed out in qualifying but coming back to score a result she described as “phenomenal”.
Guatemala’s Adriana Ruano Oliva won the gold medal, not only clinching the first ever gold for her country but claiming an Olympic record in the process with a final score of 45.
Italian Silvana Maria Stanco won silver.
“To come away with a bronze medal is just phenomenal,” Smith told Channel Nine.
“My parents always say to me, ‘keep strong and keep going forward with your shooting’ and I did it the hard way having to shoot-off to get into the final and then, yeah, kept chipping away at it.”
Smith qualified sixth for the final after missing just four shots out of 125, but to confirm her place in the final she had to win a shoot-off against China’s Xinqiu Zhang and Portugal’s Maria Ines Coelho de Barros, who had equalled her score.
She held her nerve as first Coelho de Barros missed and then Zhang was eliminated.
Smith started the final well and held on to take the bronze with a score of 32 before taking third place while Stanco and Oliva went on to shoot for silver and gold.
Smith had finished sixth at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in both the teams and individual events, and was determined to improve on that in Paris.
“I was definitely disappointed in Tokyo, and I just wanted to make it bigger and better this time,” she said.
“I trained my guts out and did everything I possibly could, and I’m so pleased to come out with a medal.”
In the final five shots of the tussle for gold, Oliva equalled the Olympic record of 43 points on her first shot, which was enough to confirm her victory. She missed the next two shots but finished with two hits and the new Olympic record.
Oliva’s success is one of the great stories of the Games. She had initially dreamed of becoming an Olympic gymnast but suffered a back injury that made it impossible.
She was so keen about the Olympics that she attended the Rio Games in 2016 as a volunteer, assigned to the shooting events, and that inspired her to take it up as a competitor.
Eight years later, her Olympic dream has come true in the best possible way.
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