Mark gets set for Games

OLYMPIC and Commonwealth Games clay target shooting champion Russell Mark is in the twilight of a 22-year international career.
The 1996 Olympic double trap gold medallist and 2006 Comonwealth Games champion is in Darwin this week to prepare for what is likely to be his last Olympics in Beijing.The 44-year-old from the Victorian city of Ballarat was also world champion in 1994 and '97 and part of Australia's world title wins in 1998 and '99. Now an executive board member of the Australian Olympic committee and the Australian Shooting Association, Mark's views on the sport he has given the best part of his life to are widely sought.Unlucky not to compete for Australia at the 2004 Athens Olympics when the barrel of his shotgun exploded while leading comfortably in qualifying, Mark has fought his way back into the national team through a combination of class and experience.A regular visitor to the Top End, Mark says Marrara shooting complex is the only place for his team to be three weeks out from the Games."The machinery is identical and the only place in Australia where it is fully operational and the great weather lends itself to intensive training,'' Mark said.Asked if the individual gold medals were career highlights, he pointed to the world team's event win at Barcelona in 1998 as the best moment he had in shooting."I got more enjoyment out of that than any other event because we had good individual shooters like Michael Diamond and myself and we put Adam Vella in the team with us,'' he said."To me that was Australia's coming of age in shooting. We had finally got someone else to come through who was world class. We had some women who were very good, Desiree Baynes was a bronze medallist in 1996 and Suzy Balogh at Athens in 2004."But we still need more depth and I don't think the gun legislation in NSW has helped the sport nationally without getting into a political debate."That killed us, so to speak, because the biggest state in Australia wasn't able to provide new shooters."We had to rely on Victorians, Queenslanders, Territorians and South Australians and forget about a state with more people in it than anywhere else.''

source: http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2008/07/14/4669_ntsport.html