{"id":3615,"date":"2020-09-03T03:17:59","date_gmt":"2020-09-02T17:17:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shootingaustralia.org\/in-sight-with-chris-pitt\/"},"modified":"2024-07-24T15:12:18","modified_gmt":"2024-07-24T05:12:18","slug":"in-sight-with-chris-pitt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shootingaustralia.org\/in-sight-with-chris-pitt\/","title":{"rendered":"In Sight with Chris Pitt"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/454238560\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Pitt\u2019s shooting investment pays off with global rewards<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><em>By Greg Campbell<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Chris Pitt loves fishing. He\u2019s been doing it for decades in Queensland\u2019s tropical north.<\/p>\n<p>For the Bundaberg local, there is nothing better than trundling out onto the water with some mates, casting a line and solving the world\u2019s problems while waiting for a bite or two.<\/p>\n<p>Given his passion for fishing, you can understand what a massive decision it was eight years ago when he sold his beloved tinny to scrape up enough cash to have a crack at the world of para-shooting as a 25m Sports Pistol athlete.<\/p>\n<p>At 47 years of age at the time, Pitt was no spring chicken and it took another Bundaberg local, 15-year old wheelchair racer Rheed McCracken, to show him the way when he won silver and bronze medals on the track at the 2012 London Paralympic Games.<\/p>\n<p>The Pitt and McCracken families knew each other well when serving on the local Fairymead Swimming Club committee, while Pitt swam with McCracken mother Samantha.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen I watched Rheed at the 2012 Paralympics, that\u2019s when I thought if a 15-year old kid can go all around the world and do what he\u2019s doing, I need to man up a bit and have a go at this. That\u2019s when the penny dropped,\u201d said Pitt.<\/p>\n<p>To understand how Pitt reached this life-changing point of his life, we need to go back to his early years.<\/p>\n<p>Growing up on a 69 hectare cane farm with his two older brothers Russell and Bruce, and older sister Suellen, Pitt loved playing sport and was a particularly fine swimmer.<\/p>\n<p>Then in early 1975, a few months short of his 10<sup>th<\/sup> birthday, Pitt\u2019s times in the pool began to slow, training was getting harder, and where he once leapt up the wall at the end of a race, it was a real struggle to climb up the ladder at the side of the pool.<\/p>\n<p>After months of medical tests and periods in hospital, Pitt was diagnosed with an autoimmune condition called dermatomyositis. Fatal to many, the disease eventually burnt itself out but left Pitt in a wheelchair.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-5132 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/shootingaustralia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/2016-Rio-Paralympic-Games-day2_03.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"794\" height=\"784\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Fast forward 35 years and Pitt only tried target pistol shooting at the urging of a couple of wheelchair mates.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey nagged me and nagged me to come and try and, eventually after a month, I gave in and went out to the range with them. I was instantly hooked, and, to a point, I still am,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>With his dormant competitive sports spirit now re-kindled, Pitt\u2019s ability with a Sports Pistol in hand soared.<\/p>\n<p>Where it took most athletes 4-8 years to be competitive internationally, it took Pitt just 18 months.<\/p>\n<p>During an Aus Cup competition in 2012, Pitt was pulled aside for a chat by former Australian Commonwealth Games pistol athlete, Peter Heuke, after an impressive performance where he scored a world class score of 572.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe took me out the back of the range and said, \u2018do you know what you have just done?\u2019 I said, \u2018I shot a pretty good score I think\u2019. He said, \u2018you don\u2019t realise that you have just opened up a whole world of possibility\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI said, \u2018what are you talking about?\u2019. He said, \u2019that\u2019s a very competitive score and you have the ability to go as far as you want.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThen I started to think and started to investigate scores at World Cups, and I thought geez, I can do this, but I can\u2019t afford to do the domestic travels \u2013 the competitions I had to do. So, I chewed on it for nearly nine months and I decided to have a go.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo, I sold my little tinny. I got four grand for it. It got me two trips to Sydney and a case of ammo,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>On his first trip to Sydney, Pitt needed a score of 560 to make the National Para Shooting squad but was left shattered when he fell an agonising three points short of the mark.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c560 was the benchmark score and I thought that would be a walk in the park,\u201d Pitt recalled.<\/p>\n<p>But the former National High Performance Coach for Athletes with a Disability, Miroslav Sipek, recognised his ability and invited him onto the squad despite missing the target score.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019d gone from devastation to elation,\u201d said Pitt.<\/p>\n<p>Then in 2013, the world of shooting opened up when he took his first overseas trip when representing Australia at the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) World Cup competition in Poland and, later, flew to Thailand for another IPC World Cup.<\/p>\n<p>In 2014, he captured his first international medal in Sports Pistol when runner-up at the IPC World Cup competition in Fort Benning, USA.<\/p>\n<p>His passport saw additional entry stamps to Croatia, Germany and the UAE before attending the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games with the Australian team.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWithout shooting, I would have been lucky to actually leave the state. Shooting has opened up a whole world to me. I think about it all the time what it has given me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>While the world\u2019s borders have opened for Pitt, he is not a fan of long-haul travel.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI still dislike the long distance travel, but I now know what to expect and I tolerate it a lot more. It is very tiring and uncomfortable,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-5126 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/shootingaustralia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Chris-Pitt-2-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1877\" height=\"1252\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Pitt has fond memories of the Rio Paralympics and came within a whisker of returning home with a bronze medal in the Mixed Sports Pistol SH1 event.<\/p>\n<p>During qualification, Pitt was languishing in 24<sup>th<\/sup> position and facing elimination after the precision round but rocketed up to seventh and a place in the final after a splendid rapid fire round of shots.<\/p>\n<p>In the final, Pitt had to win a shoot-off to reach the bronze medal match which he ultimately lost to Korea\u2019s Lee Ju-hee.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRio was an awesome experience. Straight away I decided I\u2019ll have another go at this. I thought it was unbelievable, especially going into that stadium for the Opening Ceremony. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. I\u2019ll never forget that one,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>The Tokyo Paralympic Games next year is firmly in Pitt\u2019s sights and he has yet to claim a quota to be eligible for Australian team selection.<\/p>\n<p>The Queensland Academy of Sport athlete was to travel to Peru last May to try and claim a quota, but the global COVID-19 outbreak has seen that competition postponed until May next year, if travel restrictions are lifted.<\/p>\n<p>He had an opportunity to claim a quota at the Oceania Championships in Sydney last October but didn\u2019t convert the chance.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat was extremely disappointing. It was that expectation. Not keeping it simple, getting ahead of myself and then basically a string of poor shots and I started to panic a bit. Two poor strings and it\u2019s just chaos in my head,\u201d he lamented.<\/p>\n<p>While the international shooting calendar waits finalisation, Pitt continues to conduct dry firing at home and live firing at the Bundaberg Pistol Club range. Quality rather than quantity is now his training regime.<\/p>\n<p>And fishing is very much part of the downtime away from training where he and his cousin Lex Roberts hop into their polycraft for what he calls \u2018an outing\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>With the world turned upside down because of COVID-19, the pandemic has halted any retirement plans.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne thing I\u2019ve learned from this COVID thing is that I need shooting. I was toying with the idea of Tokyo, and that\u2019s it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut over the last few months I\u2019ve decided to keep on going until they kick me out of the door as long as I am competitive and shooting well enough to be on the squad and not embarrass myself,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>And that means fishing for more medals on the international stage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pitt\u2019s shooting investment pays off with global rewards By Greg Campbell Chris Pitt loves fishing. He\u2019s been doing it for decades in Queensland\u2019s tropical north. For the Bundaberg local, there [&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-3615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-sight"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shootingaustralia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3615","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=3615"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/shootingaustralia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3615\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3618,"href":"https:\/\/shootingaustralia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3615\/revisions\/3618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shootingaustralia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shootingaustralia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shootingaustralia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}