{"id":3562,"date":"2020-06-11T01:21:28","date_gmt":"2020-06-10T15:21:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shootingaustralia.org\/in-sight-with-katarina-kowplos\/"},"modified":"2024-07-24T15:11:06","modified_gmt":"2024-07-24T05:11:06","slug":"in-sight-with-katarina-kowplos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shootingaustralia.org\/in-sight-with-katarina-kowplos\/","title":{"rendered":"In Sight with Katarina Kowplos"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: 0;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ustream.tv\/embed\/recorded\/126913629?autoplay=true\" width=\"720\" height=\"405\" frameborder=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2><\/h2>\n<h2><strong>Exceptions are the rule for Katarina<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><em>by Greg Campell<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Katarina Kowplos wasn\u2019t supposed to be going to the Tokyo Olympic Games.<\/p>\n<p>Kowplos, 18, had split Year 12 at Golden Grove High School across two years, she was enjoying working part-time at the insert department at The Advertiser newspaper in Adelaide, and was aiming to be accepted into an engineering university degree next year.<\/p>\n<p>The 2024 Paris Olympics was her target. Tokyo Olympics? That was supposed to be a TV event where she would happily cheer on the Australian Olympic team.<\/p>\n<p>In reality, Kowplos still had her shooting learner\u2019s plates on at the beginning of the year. In 2018 and 2019, she contested the 10m Air Rifle at Junior World Cup events in Suhl, Germany, and her only international 3 Positions competition was at the Oceania Championship in Sydney last year where she finished 13<sup>th<\/sup> as a member of the Australia B team.<\/p>\n<p>But in the space of two events in February and March \u2013 the first two 3 Positions rifle Olympic nomination trials \u2013 that all quickly changed.<\/p>\n<p>Back to back qualifying scores of 1141 and 1143 points \u2013 a personal best performance \u2013 saw Kowplos go from an Olympic team outsider to a team selection favourite when she opened a commanding lead on the event nomination scoreboard.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was 100 per cent looking towards Paris. I didn\u2019t expect to shoot really well. I just wanted to shoot my best and I was really pleasantly surprised how I competed,\u201d said Kowplos.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was trying to keep my excitement (of possible Olympic selection) down because I thought we wouldn\u2019t be having a female 3P shooter for Tokyo. I was excited but was keeping it in,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>She admitted she was shocked when Shooting Australia\u2019s National Rifle Coach, Petr Kurka, telephoned her to notify her of her Olympic team nomination after the four nomination events had concluded.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was not expecting it at all. I was pretty stunned. I kept it (her excitement) in until after the phone call and I casually went up to my Mum and said, \u2018guess I will have to start training for Tokyo\u2019,\u201d she recalled.<\/p>\n<p>Keeping her Olympic selection a secret from friends until the official Australian Olympic Committee announcement was a challenge. Only her mum and dad, Natalie and Steve, and younger sister Isabella knew.<\/p>\n<p>What makes Kowplos\u2019 Olympic selection even more meritorious is that she achieved her results with a borrowed rifle. More often, rifles are custom made to suit the athlete\u2019s personal preferences. Having to adjust to someone else\u2019s rifle makes a precision sport such as shooting even more difficult.<\/p>\n<p>Shooting Australia\u2019s National Talent Coach, Sydney 2000 Olympian, Carrie Quigley, located the only available left-handed rifle in Adelaide suitable for 3 Positions events and Kowplos immediately applied herself to handle the rifle\u2019s characteristics.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t think I would have been able to shoot 3P without it because it\u2019s such an investment to shoot 3P,\u201d said Kowplos.<\/p>\n<p>But since her selection for the Tokyo Olympics next year, her grandmother Lyn Violi, has assisted her grand-daughter with the purchase of a new rifle.<\/p>\n<p>While the rifle is sitting securely and unused in her gun safe, she is waiting on the delivery of rifle accessories to complete her custom set.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m looking forward to building up my equipment. With my old one, I couldn\u2019t buy butt plates because they\u2019re not transferrable across rifles. Now that I have one, I\u2019m looking forward to building a really big bucket for finals to change over with,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-4872 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/shootingaustralia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/DSC09738-1024x683-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Her introduction to shooting came via an unusual passage &#8211; the <em>Northridge Para Vista Scout Group. <\/em>\u201cThey do a target shooting program. I enjoyed beating scouts that were older than me,\u201d she said with a smile.<\/p>\n<p>When she was not attending jamborees in Maryborough in Queensland or in Cataract Park in NSW, Kowplos would shoot at the SSAA Para Branch range and decided to move to ISSF events in 2015 with the view to hopefully one day win Olympic selection.<\/p>\n<p>While she has limited experience with 3P shooting, the event has quickly become her favourite compared to Air Rifle.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think 3P (is my favourite) because a bad shot doesn\u2019t necessarily mean that your entire match is over. You can shoot a nine or an eight and it is just as likely that another competitor could have shot that shot,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n<p>For Kowplos, the postponement of the Tokyo Games until next year was a \u201crelief\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt gives us a lot more extra time to train, especially since I didn\u2019t expect to be shooting 3P internationally this soon. I\u2019m looking forward to be able to hone my skills with the extra time,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>With support from Kurka, Shooting Australia and the South Australian Institute of Sport, Kowplos will focus the next 14 months on mastering her technique across the three shooting positions, including watching YouTube videos while kneeling, and learning how to keep calm and composed while in the hurly burly of an Olympic competition.<\/p>\n<p>Apart from her part-time job and educational journey, Kowplos will continue to attend scouts, when time permits, and participate in the science fair at the Royal Adelaide Show. \u201cI\u2019ve won the last four years in my age group. It\u2019s good to be able to talk about something you love,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Kowplos has not set any lofty targets for the Tokyo Games. \u201cI\u2019m looking forward to meeting the other athletes from other competitions and shooting my best on the day,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>However, as she has already demonstrated, she has a habit of exceeding expectations and the Tokyo Olympics may not be an exception.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Exceptions are the rule for Katarina by Greg Campell Katarina Kowplos wasn\u2019t supposed to be going to the Tokyo Olympic Games. Kowplos, 18, had split Year 12 at Golden Grove [&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-3562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-sight"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shootingaustralia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3562","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=3562"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/shootingaustralia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3564,"href":"https:\/\/shootingaustralia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3562\/revisions\/3564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shootingaustralia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shootingaustralia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shootingaustralia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}