Rio, August 8, 3016 – Australian Athlete, Catherine Skinners has won gold in the Women’s trap shooting event at the Rio Olympic.
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.
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.”
