By David Nagel
Over the Christmas period, the Star News’ sports team will be re-sharing some of the most popular stories from over the course of 2023.
Thank you for supporting our newspapers over the course of the year. We hope you enjoy the selection and have a wonderful holiday period, however you choose to celebrate.
Laetisha Scanlan will return to the scene of one her greatest triumphs after Shooting Australia announced its 14-strong team to compete at the World Championships in Baku, Azerbaijan, in August.
The Berwick hot-shot won gold, silver and bronze at the ISSF World Cup at the same venue last year.
Scanlan began her clean sweep of the medal spectrum by claiming bronze in the Women’s Trap, before being the central figure in a silver-medal-winning performance by the Australian Women’s Trap Team.
The former St Margaret’s student then joined forces with James Willett to win an elusive gold medal in the Trap Mixed Team event.
Scanlan, a three-time Commonwealth Games gold medallist who finished fourth at the Olympics in Tokyo, is part of a very strong team that Australia will take abroad.
Following their medal winning performances at ISSF World Cups this year, Penny Smith (Shotgun Women’s Trap and World Ranked 1), Willett (Shotgun Men’s Trap and World Ranked 2), Catherine Skinner (Shotgun Women’s Trap) and Sergei Evglevski (25m Rapid Fire Pistol) were the first athletes selected in the team.
As a finalist at the Cairo World Cup in May, Nathan Argiro also qualified for his position on the team.
The additional nine team members – Scanlan, Mitchell Iles, Aislin Jones, Joshua Bell, Elena Galiabovitch, Bailey Groves, Dane Sampson, Jack Rossiter and Elise Collier – secured their positions based on where they placed on a performance leaderboard after a four-competition domestic selection series.
Those events concluded earlier this month.
All athletes must also meet the minimum performance standards outlined in the World Championships team selection criteria.
Heading in to the most significant competition in 2023, and a crucial competitive opportunity against the world’s best in preparation for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, Shooting Australia’s High Performance Manager Kathryn Periac was excited by the challenge.
“Our goal is to support our World Championships team to enable strong performances by each of the athletes at this event, which will in turn support critical Paris Olympic qualification requirements such as winning quota places and securing individual qualifying ranking points for the Olympic Games<” Periac said.
“Our athletes have developed and prioritised team values and behaviours to create the environment they want to be part of, and in which they can excel, and we will be working with them to deliver an experience that is successful and positive for everyone.”
The 2023 World Championships begin on Thursday 17 August.
