AUSTRALIA’S CATHERINE SKINNER WINS GOLD IN WOMEN’S TRAP SHOOTING

Ranked 13th in the world, the 26-year-old first-time Olympian got the better of New Zealand’s Natalie Rooney in the gold medal match, hitting 12 of her 15 targets to edge out her opponent by a single clay and became Australia’s second Olympic women’s trap champion, after Suzanne Balogh in 2004.

Competing at her third Games, the USA’s Corey Cogdell won the second bronze medal of her Olympic career after a shoot-off with Spain’s Fatima Galvez, this after each had shot 13 of their 15 targets in their tussle for the medal.

The Melbourne-based Skinner, who has been competing since 2006, booked an automatic ticket to the final from the six-shooter semi-finals. Rooney joined her there after a sudden-death shoot-off with Cogdell, but could not quite match Skinner in the battle for gold.

Elated at winning her country’s third gold medal of Rio 2016, the Australian said.
“I cannot really because it has not quite sunk in. It has been one of these dreams that has come along, and you just hope for the best and keep chipping away. But, at the end of the day, in this sport it all comes down to on the day. Any one of the competitors here could have won, and today just happened to be my day.”

Holding back the tears, Skinner added: “It’s been a rough sort of process, because I keep on being the bridesmaid. So I’ve got several silvers, several bronzes, and finally I’ve got the gold. There has been lots of tears and tantrums in the build-up to this. I’m sure there are plenty of people back at home saying, ‘I told you so.’ You just never know.”