Skinner succeeds in her goal of gold
Catherine Skinner has won Australia’s fourth gold medal of the 27th Summer Universiade in Kazan, Russia.
As one of Australia’s best women trap shooters, she has persevered to finally finish on top, going one better than her silver medal in the same event in Shenzhen, China two years ago.
Born and bred in Mansfield, Victoria before moving to boarding school in Melbourne, Skinner had been vying to add gold to her growing collection of silver medals.
“It is definitely some icing on the cake to get that bit of gold into the mix of silver,” she said.
Despite making a sluggish start in the semi-final and final, Skinner defeated Silvana Stanco 11 to 10 hits in the gold medal match, after qualifying with 69 hits and equally leading the semi-finals with 13 hits.
The RMIT engineering student was able to reverse the roles from the recent shooting World Cup results in Cyprus last month.
“I was so focused out there it still hasn’t sunk it. But I have the gold now and I am just so happy.”
After such a busy shooting schedule in recent months, Skinner was relieved with the win, especially after throwing her support behind other Aussie athletes.
“I had a pretty consistent shoot this afternoon and I was hoping to shoot a little a bit better. But considering I have been going off and watching the other sports, I have done fairly well,” the patriotic Australian laughed.
Australian Chef De Mission Martin Roberts made the journey to the Sviyaga Shooting Range and enjoyed supporting Australia’s latest gold medalist.
“We came out to support Catherine this afternoon, and it feels fantastic. Our ninth medal and our fourth gold,” Roberts said.
“It was tough competition all round. Stanco did really well early on. But Catherine is a professional and she really held on strong.”
“It is great sport to watch live and it is always a great spectacle. Watching the athletes as they go up for the shoot and then in between it is a wonderful testament to skill and perseverance.”
For the record, trap shooting involves taking down little orange discs wide that are thrown out of traps in front of the shooters at speeds of about 100k’s an hour with a shot gun.
Thomas Dullard (AUS) – YRP