{"id":3555,"date":"2020-05-28T03:01:54","date_gmt":"2020-05-27T17:01:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shootingaustralia.org\/in-sight-with-laura-coles\/"},"modified":"2024-07-24T15:11:03","modified_gmt":"2024-07-24T05:11:03","slug":"in-sight-with-laura-coles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shootingaustralia.org\/in-sight-with-laura-coles\/","title":{"rendered":"In Sight with Laura Coles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ustream.tv\/embed\/recorded\/126784286?autoplay=true\" style=\"border: 0;\" webkitallowfullscreen allowfullscreen frameborder=\"no\" width=\"720\" height=\"405\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2><\/h2>\n<h2><strong>Laura navigates career crossroads to realise Olympic goal<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Greg Campbell<\/p>\n<p>As a young girl growing up on her family\u2019s property in Busselton, 222 kilometres south of Perth, Laura Coles would idle the hours away riding her Quarterhorse, Lady, and dreaming of becoming an Olympic equestrian rider. Even at such a young age, Coles had developed an inner drive and ambition to excel.<\/p>\n<p>The roadway to success is often littered with potholes and pitfalls, but also with life defining opportunities which can carve out a new, exciting direction.<\/p>\n<p>When she was aged 15, her grandfather, Ray Worthington, gave her dad Glenn a bunch of guns to safely store in his gun safe. Among those was an SKB trap shotgun. Glen decided to attend the local range for a shoot and, soon after, Laura joined him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was awful at it. I was really, really bad,\u201d she recalled. \u201cI had a go at DTL (Down The Line) and I hit three of 25 targets. I think it was the worst I\u2019ve ever seen someone come and start off. But I really liked it. Everyone at the club was very welcoming,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Regardless of the result, young Laura was hooked and, soon after, she was introduced to skeet shooting. Saddles and stirrups were soon replaced by cartridges and clays.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI always struggled with DTL. I don\u2019t think I read a target that\u2019s going directly away from me all that well. I much prefer reading a target that\u2019s crossing directly in front of me rather than going away from me,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the change of sport, Coles\u2019 Olympic dreams continued to burn away. She had seen her uncle\u2019s cousin, Fabrice Lapierre, climbed through the ranks as one of the world\u2019s best long jumpers to win a bronze medal at the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games before winning selection for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. A gold medal at the 2010 Commonwealth Games followed.<\/p>\n<p>But being based in Western Australia, a state with limited shooting pedigree, was difficult for Coles. The main competitions and expert coaches were, and continue to be, located on the eastern seaboard requiring regular long and expensive travel costs.<\/p>\n<p>Physically, Coles also appears to be at a disadvantage. Standing a mere 1.57m and weighing less than 50kgs, Coles\u2019 tiny physique would be more familiar in silks in the mounting yards of Ascot, Flemington or Royal Randwick racecourses rather than on the shotgun range lugging a four kilogram shotgun and firing off an energy sapping 75 targets at a time under a blazing sun.<\/p>\n<p>But by 2011, Coles had climbed through the ranks and entered the international competition scene when selected to represent Australia at the 2011 Oceania Championships in Sydney where she won the silver medal. Further World Cup meets followed in Sydney and Maribor in Slovenia plus the World Championship in Belgrade, Serbia.<\/p>\n<p>In 2014, Coles won Australian team selection for the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and captured the gold medal.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI had a great run into Glasgow. I had a great year in terms of domestic performance, and everything fell into line going on that pathway to Glasgow and obviously I had a great day on the day as well,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Although she eventually climbed to the top of the dais, self-doubt quickly filled her mind after missing the target with her first shot.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI thought \u2018oh God, here we go\u2019 and I thought I was going to have a terrible day. I decided, you know what, that\u2019s okay. It\u2019s a wonderful thing just to have made a Commonwealth Games and I\u2019m just going to enjoy this and go with it. And from there on in, it was actually a great experience because I just enjoyed it and obviously the results spoke for itself,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-4854 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/shootingaustralia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/r0_0_620_348_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"620\" height=\"348\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Two years later, Coles was the favourite to win the sole Australian Olympic team skeet quota position for the 2016 Rio Games but was overlooked for Victoria\u2019s Aislin Jones. Shooting Australia had adopted a &#8220;sole discretion&#8221; selection policy at that time and a shattered Coles unsuccessfully appealed her non-selection.<\/p>\n<p>With her Olympic dreams in tatters, Coles\u2019 career was at the crossroads. Should she continue to shoot, or unload the shells and walk away?<\/p>\n<p>She didn\u2019t want to live with any regrets, so she dusted herself off and won selection for the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games but didn\u2019t qualify for the final.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI never wanted my disappointments or my lows to define my career,\u201d she said. \u201cIf I was to stop shooting, I would want to stop it for the right reasons. I didn\u2019t want to look back and think what if I kept going, could I have done this. That\u2019s why I kept going.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt took me quite a few years to get over that (Rio) disappointment. I don\u2019t think I was quite over it by the time of the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast. I think that really showed in my performance,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n<p>For the Tokyo Olympics, Shooting Australia\u2019s selection policy changed where the athlete who topped the four-event nomination series would be automatically nominated to the Australian Olympic Committee for selection.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen I first saw that criteria, in some ways I was incredibly relieved and in others I felt a lot of pressure. There was really nothing to hide behind. You either had to be the highest scorer or you weren\u2019t going,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was incredibly nervous throughout the series. I remember having problems sleeping, I remember having bad dreams about missing targets, I think I nearly threw myself out of bed trying to hit targets in my sleep, so I definitely felt the pressure. The pressure was on the whole way through right up until the very last shot of qualifying.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Apart from the change of Olympic selection criteria, there were two other defining moments.<\/p>\n<p>Her training partner, Nick Melanko, took on a coaching role and is now her fianc\u00e9 and they are to be married in November.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s my coach. He\u2019s my rock. He has been really a pillar of strength for me and I think he\u2019s made such a big difference with my performance. He\u2019s the massage therapist, he\u2019s the psychologist, he\u2019s the shoulder to cry on \u2013 everything wrapped up in the one person,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>The other key step was the manufacturing of her custom-made Perazzi gun to suit her size.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor the majority of people, an off the shelf gun might suit them fairly well because they\u2019re made for the average person. But I am not the average person and the average gun doesn\u2019t suit me.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s light enough for me to handle, it recoils very little. Without that piece of equipment, I don\u2019t think I could perform as well as I have,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>The enforced COVID-19 break from shooting has seen Coles itching to return to the range. Apart from shooting being her sport, her Hot Shots Shooting business in Whiteman Park in Perth is also her occupation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s lot of fun being able to introduce people to a sport that I love. I think it taught me a lot about shooting and the way that we learn and our psychology when it comes to executing that type of skill,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Now, with social restrictions gradually being lifted and her mind at ease following her Tokyo selection, life is slowly returning to normal and a little girl\u2019s Olympic dreams are now just 14 months away from being fully realised.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Laura navigates career crossroads to realise Olympic goal Greg Campbell As a young girl growing up on her family\u2019s property in Busselton, 222 kilometres south of Perth, Laura Coles would [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-sight"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shootingaustralia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shootingaustralia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shootingaustralia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shootingaustralia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shootingaustralia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3555"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/shootingaustralia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3557,"href":"https:\/\/shootingaustralia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3555\/revisions\/3557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shootingaustralia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shootingaustralia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shootingaustralia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}