Catherine Skinner recently broke her gold medal duck at the 27th Summer Universiade in Kazan, Russia and since tasting gold, she is showing no signs of slowing down.
A golden shot: Australian women’s trap shooter, Catherine Skinner, stands atop the podium with her gold medal at the 27th Summer Universiade.
The Australian women’s trap shooter is firming her position for the Glasgow Commonwealth Games team in 2014, but she is carefully not getting ahead of herself.
“I am hopeful for the Commonwealth Games team, but really I am concentrating on the World Championships in September. I think it is about November that we have the World Cup final, ” said Catherine.
“So really I am only taking it one competition at a time. At the end of it, I will know what is going on.”
After qualifying third and narrowly missing out on selection for the London Olympics in 2012, she has been at the pointy end of the competition and is committed to her ongoing development as an ISSF shooter.
“I am right around the top now, but the pressure ended up getting to me in 2012 and hopefully I can continue to live and learn.”
There will be two spots at the Commonwealth Games, and Skinner’s recent form has her primed for another outing in the green and gold.
As one of Australia’s best women trap shooters, she has persevered to finally finish on top at the Universiade – a world renowned multi sports event – and went one better than her silver medal in the same event in Shenzhen, China two years ago.
Born and bred in the Victorian town of Mansfield before moving to boarding school in Melbourne, Skinner had been vying to add gold to her growing collection of silver medals and has stamped her name among the world’s best.
“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.
“From my recent performances, like the Universiade, the Commonwealth Games are a realistic approach from what I have heard.”
“I just don’t want to talk it up because we still have a lot of competitions and sections to go. I just don’t know what is going to happen in the future.”
Immediately after returning to Australia, she was swooped by the Australian Sport authorities to help promote the launch of the Aussie’s involvement in the 2014 Commonwealth Games.
It was an opportunity to draw her closer with potential Australian teammates.
“Most of the time, we were just up there smiling for the camera. But it was good to catch up with the athletes from other sports.” she said.
“We don’t get to catch up very often so to hear what they do and how strict their training is versus the shooting and to hear how they cope with the rest of life.”
Skinner is hopeful for a berth on the Commonwealth Games team, but will be focusing on the World Championships in September and another World Cup in November.
“It has sunk in now. But now there are so many other things coming up, so it is just another chalk mark up on the walk. I have got that one. What is next?’
