A south-west Victorian trap shooter is aiming high after winning her first International Shooting Sport Federation world championships gold medal.
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Penny Smith arrived home at her family’s Bookaar property on Thursday morning following a whirlwind trip to Russia.
The Australian representative, 22, and Sydney-based teammate Thomas Derek Grive beat out 49 other pairs to win the inaugural mixed trap event.
Now, she is eyeing individual women’s trap success at the world cup final in India in five weeks’ time and a spot on Australia’s 2018 Commonwealth Games team.
Smith said she was one of three Australians competing for two women’s trap spots.
“It’s going to be a challenge,” she said.
“I am still sitting second at the moment but anything can happen.
“I will work hard and if it happens, it happens and if it doesn’t I won’t be too disappointed.”
Smith said her success on the world championships stage was unexpected.
They hit 95 of their 100 targets in the preliminary section to be one of just six teams, which included a second Australian outfit, to advance to shoot-off rounds.
Smith and Grive qualified for the gold medal shoot-off, defeating a Spanish duo 33 hits to 32.
“After 15 targets we were behind by six targets which is difficult to claw your way back from,” Smith said.
“As the competition went on the tables turned and the Spanish team dropped quite a lot of targets. It was a good feeling when the crowd got louder and louder.
“It was hard for us because we didn’t know the scores because the electric scoreboard wasn’t working, which was probably a good thing, and we didn’t realise we’d won until they announced it.
“It was disbelief that we’d won. It was great to get the win, especially being the inaugural mixed trap world championships team.”