Episode 189 - Laura Coles Interview

Show Notes

It's time to get on target once more as we go back to the sport of Shooting by speaking with Australian Olympic shooter Laura Coles about her amazing journey in the sport! We find out which sport Laura actually started out in and why that sport was her initial goal to become an Olympian in. We also find out how a series of heartbreaking near Olympic misses spurred her on towards he Tokyo appearance and just what that moment meant to her lining up in the Australian uniform on her competition day at the Olympics. Added to this we find out just why music being played at shooting events isn't necessarily a good thing as well as why we will hopefully see her competing at future Olympics as far away as 2040. It's an incredible chat that you will love every second of so get to listening!

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BEN WATERWORTH: It is Off The Podium, an Olympics podcast, coming to you once again for another athlete interview. We are returning to shooting today, and we are speaking with Tokyo Olympian Laura Coles competes in skeet shooting. And we're going to learn a little bit more about skeet shooting today. Why is it different to trap shooting? Is there a difference? What's the difference? How do we know the difference? We're going to learn that from Laura here as well. And outside of that, we get a really, really fascinating and personal story about Laura's journey to even get to the Tokyo Olympics. She narrowly missed out on London, narrowly missed out on Rio, thought she was going to miss out on Tokyo, just an incredible journey of perseverance here to even make the team for Tokyo 2020. She's a Commonwealth Games gold medallist as well, so quite successful in her sport. And it's very intriguing to hear just why she wasn't on that 2016 Rio team. But a lot of fun is to be had here in this interview. It's personal, it's honest, it's everything you want from an interview, and a little bit funny too, that's all I'll say. Here is our chat with Tokyo Olympic shooter Laura Coles.

BEN WATERWORTH: I'm always excited to be able to talk about the sport of shooting here on Off The Podium, and very excited to chat to today's guest, Tokyo Olympian Commonwealth Games Gold Medallist, multiple Oceanic Champions Gold Medallist, and somebody who I am so excited to learn a little bit more about her journey in the sport, and how she ended up in it, because it's been interesting, I find. Laura Coles is with us today. Laura, first of all, welcome to Off The Podium. It's a pleasure to chat with you.

LAURA COLES: Thanks very much, Ben.

BEN WATERWORTH: I always like finding out transitions with athletes, so that they may be starting one sport, end up in another. And often when it comes to some sports, you can see the correlation. Others, I kind of don't see how you get from point A to point B. I believe you started in equestrian, Laura. So unless you were trying out for the modern pentathlon, how on earth do you go from being an equestrian athlete to an Olympic shooter?

LAURA COLES: I always wanted to ride horses ever since I was a little kid. And luckily, like I grew up down in in Busselton, which was in the southwest of Western Australia. So I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to actually ride horses. And I did that quite, quite well. But back a long time ago, in 2005, around the gun buyback time, where all the rules changed, that was brought in by John Howard's government. My grandfather didn't want to put a gun cabinet in, and he had a shotgun in his collection of guns that he needed to get rid of because of not wanting to put that cabinet in. My dad had always been into shooting, so he already had a gun cabinet. So it just kind of was by chance that we were given this shotgun. And I kind of say thanks to John Howard for changing those rules. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't have been in the sport of shooting because it would have never crossed my mind to try it.

BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, that's, I mean, crazy to think that we can have someone on here going, thanks, John Howard, I wouldn't be an Olympian if it wasn't for you. I mean, he might have given some funding in the lead up to Sydney to kind of help certain athletes, but not on that level. So, wow, you want to track down John Howard now, maybe now and just say like, hey, Johnny, thanks for my Olympic experience. That's unique, which I believe that came pretty late then. So if that was 2005, so you would have been what about 18 or so at the time?

LAURA COLES: I started shooting back in, actually, it must have been earlier than that. It was 2000. Well, I was 15. So I was 15, which for shooting, that's actually a pretty common age for people to take it up. Here in Western Australia, you can actually start a lot younger. You can start anytime that your parents say that you are ready, you're strong enough, you're emotionally and mentally mature enough. But in Victoria and New South Wales, the limit is 12 years. So it really meant that I wasn't really starting much later than most other juniors anyway.

BEN WATERWORTH: Which then when you pick up that gun and you have that shot, no pun intended, that was a good one, do you take to it straight away? Like is this something that all of a sudden you're like, wow, I love this experience, I want to do this. Is it kind of you just kept practising and all of a sudden you realise you were good at it? I mean, how do you then move into competitive shooting?

LAURA COLES: When I first started it, I was awful. I've seen lots and lots of people start shooting now over the years, and I'm probably the worst I've ever seen. There was not a natural bone in my body, but I really enjoyed it. It was a challenge, and the people around the sport were actually really welcoming. So I enjoyed it, and I kept going. And the kind of discipline of clay target shooting that I started in wasn't really what I was naturally good at. I shot that particular discipline, which was trap, for a few months, until I discovered skeet, which isn't shot as much around Australia. And when I started skeet, I actually kind of took to that far more naturally. So I kind of, I found my thing. And then like just one thing led to another, and I made a state team, and then I won a national title. And then I changed from the domestic version of skeet to the international version of skeet. That was like starting all over again.

BEN WATERWORTH: I've got to ask a question, and I'm sure you get this a lot. How do you differentiate between skeet and trap? Because a lot of Australians think about shooting in the Olympics. We're thinking trap, double trap, Russell Mark, Michael Diamond. You know, Catherine Skinner, people like this. I mean, what is the difference between skeet and trap?

LAURA COLES: So trap is definitely where we've had most of our Olympic success here in Australia. Trap is where pretty much all the targets are going up and away from the shooter. The shooter doesn't know what angle they're coming out at, though. They could come, especially in the Olympic trap, they could come out high, low and left and right or straight. So they're kind of just looking above kind of a point where they know that those targets are coming out of and reacting because they don't know what they're going to get. Double trap is now not included in the Olympic program, but double trap was where Russell Mark won his Olympic gold. That's where you've got two targets. Again, they're both going up and away, being released from in front of the shooter. But in that discipline, for most of the years that it was shot, they knew which targets they were going to get. They knew the trajectory. They had to actually add in a small delay on that because the shooter knew where it was coming from and originally when they first called pull, the target would be released straight away. Some of the shooters actually just started to call pull and pull the trigger just in front of the trap. So they actually had to add a little delay into that to stop that from happening. But unfortunately, that particular discipline has been taken out of the Olympics. So that's a shame for shooting. But the discipline that I shoot, skeet, you shoot it around a semi-circle. And the targets emerge from two separate houses. There's a high house and a low house. You start your round of 25 targets around at station number one, which is directly underneath the high house. You make your way around to pad number seven, which is directly beside the window of the low house. And you finish off your round on pad eight, which is kind of in the middle of the ground. So we're pretty much shooting crossing targets, which is what I find easier to read. And you always know the same sequence. So you know where that target's coming out of. You know where it's going to. And always those targets are set. So they're set at the same angle. Doesn't matter where you go in the world. The only thing that can change it a little bit is the wind.

BEN WATERWORTH: Right. And is that, does it come down to when you realise what you're more suited to, that it's that, that you're saying you know where they're coming from, so you know where to go for versus the randomness? Like maybe some people are more suited to kind of that quick reaction of there it is, there it is versus I already know where it's going to be.

LAURA COLES: Yeah, I think that's part of it. I think definitely the fact that people who shoot trap have to react and have to make a kind of an on the spot decision as to where to shoot in order to intercept that target. It's very quick and I think, to be honest, I don't really read targets that are going up and away from me all that well. I read a target that's kind of crossing flags. I can kind of think of it in a little bit more of a two-dimensional aspect, if that makes sense, whereas you have to think really three-dimensionally about a target that's going away from you.

BEN WATERWORTH: See, I'm a planner. See, I'd be into skeet. I can't do the randomness. I can't just react to something that I don't know what's going to happen. I'm skeet all the way. I need to know where it's going.

LAURA COLES: Yeah, me too. I like that about skeet as well.

BEN WATERWORTH: Which, just back to your equestrian days, was it a goal? Were the Olympics sort of a goal? Were you growing up watching Andrew Hoy, Matt Ryan, all these sort of people, like all the success they had in the 90s up until Sydney? Was that an ultimate Olympic goal?

LAURA COLES: Yeah, absolutely. I loved watching the equestrian at the Olympics. I think I watched every single games from when I was about five years old. So yeah, I did watch those guys. And I do remember watching Andrew Hoy win his medal in Sydney. I also watched Michael Diamond, though, win his medal in Sydney, even though I had absolutely no interest in that sport. But I thought, you know, I watched him win that, and I thought that was pretty amazing. It was a really emotional medal.

BEN WATERWORTH: Because your dad had just passed away from memory, wasn't it? It had.

LAURA COLES: And to win, that was his second gold back to back. So to win two back to backs, that's an amazing achievement to have all that pressure on you and expectation from the last games, and to still be able to perform under that extreme pressure, especially after just losing his dad. That was an amazing medal.

BEN WATERWORTH: It was a real golden period, wasn't it? I mean, Atlanta, yeah, Michael Diamond, Russell Mark won it, and I think Russell got silver in Sydney from memory. And then in Athens, we had Susan Ballow in gold. And from memory, didn't Michael Diamond nearly get a bronze in Beijing? He made the shootout, I think, from memory. I know he nearly won a third medal, but I think he got fourth.

LAURA COLES: He very nearly won a medal in London.

BEN WATERWORTH: Was it London?

LAURA COLES: So London, he actually shot a world record of 125 out of 125 in the qualification. But unfortunately, he just didn't quite hold it together in the final, but he came really close. I think he had to shoot off for that bronze.

BEN WATERWORTH: I just remember there was definitely another one where it was kind of like, wow, he's still going. What an amazing kind of athlete. That was the beauty. We've talked a lot to some of our Sydney athletes about the beauty of Sydney was, I think for those who were kind of so invested in it, we remember all those gold medallists. I could remember all of those 16 gold medallists probably more so than the 17 gold medallists in Tokyo. And I mean, yeah, it's shooting. We were winning gold in archery, for god sakes. Like it's kind of, you know, things like that that were amazing. Just I want to quickly ask about a question, because at the time of this, we've not had a question. And I realise we had to talk to you about shooting. But Laura, can you explain to us dressage? Like, what the hell is that? Like, like, what is dressage? And why is it a thing? Please try and tell us.

LAURA COLES: It's kind of like dancing with a horse. The rider has to go in there. They have like a pre-planned out set of moves that that horse has to execute. And you get judged on how well you and the horse work together to execute them. But, yeah, I remember I participated in dressage, and I was probably more nervous doing a dressage routine. I remember my very first dressage routine. I went into the arena, and my mouth was dry. It was like sandpaper. I've never experienced that kind of level of nervousness anywhere else. But that may have been because I was young.

BEN WATERWORTH: But it's harder than it looks then. That's what you're basically saying, right?

LAURA COLES: It is. Yeah, absolutely. You're making these tiny little moves with your feet and changing where your weight goes on the saddle and making tiny little moves through the reins and the horse's mouth to send these messages, to get this horse to make these kind of moves. So it looks like the rider sits there and does nothing, but there's a whole pile of communication happening really subtly.

BEN WATERWORTH: I like it when we can get to these sports, which we've maybe had a bit of fun of over the years and we can kind of actually hear the subtleties of it. I mean, for you, though, just quickly on the Tokyo experience, your teammates with Andrew Frickin Hoy at that point, the guy's 62 winning medals. They're no different sports. But I mean, how do you think they're growing up watching him win gold medals in the 90s and the 2000s? And here is what he's eighth Olympics winning two more medals. I mean, the guy's an insane machine.

LAURA COLES: Amazing, amazing. I think I would have loved to have crossed paths with Andrew. He would have been probably the one I would be most excited to run into at the games.

BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, for sure. But was he questioned in the same area or were they kind of out somewhere? Like, was he at the village? Do you know?

LAURA COLES: Hey, I believe that they were based at the village, like we were. We were also quite away from Tokyo, so our shooting range was about an hour's drive. So every day, I was getting up at like 5 a.m. to go have breakfast, get on the bus, and make sure I was out at training in time, so I didn't miss any of my rounds.

BEN WATERWORTH: You mentioned before about transitioning from the domestic version of skeet to the international ones. What are the key differences there, and why is there a difference? Why are we shooting differently to how, say, maybe you do at the Olympics?

LAURA COLES: So in the domestic form of skeet, the targets are only travelling about 55 metres. To do that, they're launched off of the arm of the machine at about 55 kms an hour. Like, it's not incredibly fast. In international skeet, those targets are having to make 68 metres, plus or minus one metre, so 67, 69. To do that, those targets are leaving that machine at a little bit over 90 kms an hour. So they are considerably faster. And also in the domestic form of skeet, as soon as you call pull, that target is going to emerge straight away. In international skeet, that may come out straight away, but it may come out up to three seconds later. So you don't know when that target is going to appear. Three seconds, wow. And three seconds when you're nervous, can seem like an eternity. And also the main, there's two more main differences. The other one is your gun position. So in American skeet, you get to start with your gun on your shoulder. But in international skeet, your gun must start. It's a point, we have a line on our jacket that we must start our gun at. And that's pretty much just a little bit below your elbow. So it's quite a way down. So you can't lift your gun until you see that target emerge.

BEN WATERWORTH: Wow, that sounds so challenging. It's not just like a simple like you're playing, like I know in ice hockey, but the NHL rinks just maybe a little bit smaller than the international one. You're just playing on a bit of a rink. This is like sounds like almost a completely different sport.

LAURA COLES: It nearly is. That's what makes it so hard to transition. And probably that that mount for me was the hardest thing to learn how to do, because you have to do it quickly and accurately. And generally, those two things don't really go together very well. The faster you try to do something, the less accurate it will become. So that's something you really have to work on to get to a point where it is actually reasonably fast, but still accurate. The other thing is the sequence. So in American ski or domestic ski, you only need to shoot pairs of targets. So two targets released simultaneously from the high and low on pad one to six and seven. Whereas in international ski, you need to shoot pairs on every target, every station, sorry, from one through to seven, with the exception of eight. Eight is the only station in international ski where you don't shoot a pair of targets. You only shoot singles there.

BEN WATERWORTH: And then are there areas in Australia where you can do the international side of things, or do you have to sort of travel overseas in order to kind of, you know, improve your international side of things rather than the domestic one?

LAURA COLES: The good thing about international ski is most domestic layouts can sort of be tweaked up to throw an international style target. It's not that hugely different. It's unlike trench, where trench is so far removed from a domestic trap layout, where, you know, domestic trap, it's just a single box with a single trap on top of the ground. Whereas international trap or trench is below ground. So there's a whole pile of earthworks involved in putting in one of those ranges. And there's 15 machines under the ground. So to put in one of those layouts is incredibly expensive. So there's actually not that many, especially in Western Australia. I think we only have, we had for many, many years, only two grounds in the state. Now we've got a third. Calgullies recently put a range in, but there's not all that many international trap ranges, which means a lot of the athletes actually have to travel several hours to go and train. But international ski is a little bit easier to find access to ranges that are capable of throwing a target that's at least near to international standard.

BEN WATERWORTH: I always love learning more about the subtleties of different sports, because on paper, it's like, you've got a gun, you shoot things. It's not that hard to find somewhere to do it. But no, it's like there's all these extra elements. And I was reading that, and you maybe alluded to it before, that the shooting scene in WA is not what it is, say, on the Eastern States. I mean, how is the sport of shooting in WA compared to more so like in the New South Wales, the Victorias, the Queenslands and places like that?

LAURA COLES: Definitely, I think that the home of clay target shooting in Australia is Victoria. They're probably our strongest state, followed probably by New South Wales and Queensland. Whereas we're definitely a little bit behind in terms of numbers shooting and quality of shooting as well. So, yeah, we're a little bit behind. We try to keep up, but it's kind of hard in Western Australia because a lot of the really high quality coaching and the high quality competition is held over on the eastern side of Australia. So it's a long way for people to go and get that kind of coaching. So I think that's part of what holds us back.

BEN WATERWORTH: In terms of the gun now, am I saying gun, rifle? What's the correct term here, Laura? I don't want to offend. Is it a rifle?

LAURA COLES: No, you were actually correct the first time. Gun is correct.

BEN WATERWORTH: Gun is correct.

LAURA COLES: Yes, a gun is refers to something with a smooth bore. And that's what a shotgun is. So we're just shooting out little pieces of shot. It is a shotgun. So in our cartridges, in Olympic discipline, we are restricted to 24 grams of lead shot. And in most domestic disciplines, they shoot about 28 grams of lead shot. Whereas a rifle, the reason why it's called a rifle, is because it has like rifling down the barrel, which is kind of like a spiral that helps to spin the projectile to stabilise its movement through the air.

BEN WATERWORTH: Wow, no clue. I never knew that was a thing. Look at that. Look at me learning on this show today. I love that. I know in the past, I've like, you know, on certain days at a boat or a ship, like, oh, don't say boat, don't say ship. I believe, though, with your gun, that you have to have it custom made. Is this correct? Like, you need to have a special one made for you? And is this down to your size? I mean, am I in the right ballpark here?

LAURA COLES: Pretty much everybody who's shooting on the international circuit at least has a custom stock made, which is kind of the back part of the gun. It needs to fit you perfectly. If it doesn't fit you, the thing is, especially with our mount where it's coming up really quickly, you don't have time to make fine adjustments. You need that gun to come up, and you need to be looking straight down that barrel every time. If your gun doesn't fit you properly, so many things will go wrong. You probably won't be looking down there, the barrel, which means you're not going to be shooting where you think you're pointing it. It's going to recoil wrong. So if the gun doesn't fit your shoulder properly, and you pull the trigger, and it's not completely seated on your shoulder, that recoil is going to make the gun either kick up or kick down, which is going to actually change your shot placement, so make you less accurate. So those that want to get those like extra few targets out, which, you know, when you're going to the Olympics, one target is the difference between you making the final or you're not making the final or you're winning a gold medal or, you know, whatever those things are. So to really get the most out of your shooting, you do need a custom stock at least. For me, because I'm so small, I'm only five foot two and like about 55 kilos. I'm not all that big, so I'm not really your average size bloke, which is what most guns are made for when they come out of the factory. So for me to be able to shoot something well, I need something that, you know, is kind of relative to my size and weighted in that way as well.

BEN WATERWORTH: Do you then have like the same gun? Like is it your lucky gun that you've had for a long time? Is it kind of different events bring a different gun? And how does that kind of work?

LAURA COLES: Okay, so every time I change guns, which isn't very often across my international career, I've had three guns. Every time I change guns, it takes me about six months to learn how to shoot it properly. So the prospect of like the airlines losing your gun or the gun not turning up at the competition is a kind of scary one. Because you need that gun, and it's such a big thing if it gets lost, which that has happened to some really unfortunate shooters. Because yeah, it's so individual to you.

BEN WATERWORTH: Which, I mean, how do you lose a gun of all things? I mean, I can imagine the process you've got to go through to go through airport security and everything with a gun is already high enough. I mean, I think that's one thing that they're not going to lose because I'm sure they're pretty much aware that on this flight we have a gun somewhere.

LAURA COLES: Yeah, I don't know how they... I've had my gun temporarily lost a couple of times.

BEN WATERWORTH: Temporarily lost. There it is. Oh, I thought it was lost.

LAURA COLES: Yeah, I don't know how they do it. I have heard of one horror story where one airline locked it in a compartment and they forgot that they put it in the compartment, and they didn't find it again for a year later when someone's accidentally gone looking in this compartment. They're like, oh, what's this?

BEN WATERWORTH: A gun.

LAURA COLES: Yeah, someone's really missing that gun.

BEN WATERWORTH: I think behind a bomb, the second worst thing you want to find on a plane is a gun. So, wow, that's incredible. Do you give your gun the name? Is it kind of you're talking to her? Like, you know, come on, Jenny, let's do this or something along those lines?

LAURA COLES: Not really. Some people do name their guns. The gun I had before this, my current gun, I did give it a name. My current gun actually doesn't have a name, but I'm pretty sure, like my previous gun, which was my MX-8, her name was Pyra. I'm pretty sure she was a girl, but I'm pretty sure this current gun is a boy. Like it doesn't have a name, but I'm pretty sure it's male.

BEN WATERWORTH: A bit more difficult, just a pain in the butt.

LAURA COLES: I don't know what to call it.

BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, you call it Ben. I mean, you know, I'm always open to things being called after me.

LAURA COLES: I'll see if it likes the name.

BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, and then use it towards Paris, and then that way, again, I'm trying to get the bobsled girls to name their bobsled after me so that I can cross the line in an Olympics. I'm like, hey, wicked, I'm an Olympian, so you can use the gun in Paris. Give me an Olympic experience somewhere. I'm trying to channel it through our guests. You make the Commonwealth Games in 2014. Go on to win the gold in Glasgow. I believe at that point, you hadn't really sort of been on the Australian team for that long. I mean, what was it kind of like going to a Commonwealth Games and then walking away as a gold medallist? I mean, that must be a pretty incredible experience.

LAURA COLES: Yeah, it was. Like, there was actually quite a lot of disappointment that led up to that kind of Commonwealth Games team. You know, I tried to make the 2012 Olympic team, and I really I narrowly missed out on that. And I was absolutely devastated. And I kind of questioned whether I wanted to keep shooting. But I really missed training, so I actually do enjoy training. And I was kind of scared to go back into a selection process for games, because they're a little bit, they're hugely pressurised. And obviously, I decided I'd give it another go. And I had a really great kind of selection period, kind of like a bit of a dream run, really. And then once I made that team, I was kind of like a dog that's chased a rabbit and actually got the rabbit and kind of surprised that they actually got the rabbit, doesn't know what to do with it after. And I was absolutely terrified in the preparation for the 2014 Commonwealth Games, because, oh my goodness, people are going to actually watch me shoot. And, you know, I just felt like Australia was going to be watching, which that's not really the case, but it's what it felt like. So I was absolutely terrified in the lead up to those games. But I was told by a psychic that I would win the medal in Glasgow. She turned out to be right. But she told me I had to, every morning and every night, get up. And before I did anything else, I would get up and say, I am the 2014 Commonwealth Games gold medallist. So I did that every day for about three months in the lead up to these games. I remember getting up the morning of competition. The day before, I had shot terribly. Like I shot, I think I shot about a 60, like low 60s. And I think it was like 62 or something like that in training, which was bad, bad. Like if I shot like that on competition day, I wasn't even going to make the final. So I remember sitting on my bed that morning saying to myself, I am the 2014 Commonwealth Games gold medallist, but kind of not really believing it in a way. And I got out there, the very first shot, I missed the target. I thought, oh my goodness. Some days are good days, and some days are really bad days. And it's almost like the harder you try, the worse it gets. So I thought, oh God, I'm just going to have a bad day on what seemed to be the most important day of my shooting career. And I just thought, oh well, it is what it is. I'm just going to enjoy it. So after that first miss, I actually didn't miss that many more targets, not because I wasn't trying. I was just there, was enjoying the experience, and kind of everything else kind of fell into place. And I obviously made the final. And then I just thought at the final, I've made the final. That's what Shooting Australia wanted me to do. That's the goal that they put in place for me. And I told them that I wanted to win a medal at the games, and they said, We don't think you can. We don't think you're ready.

BEN WATERWORTH: Great, great inspirational speech there. Shooting Australia?

LAURA COLES: Yeah, nah, we don't think you're ready.

BEN WATERWORTH: You try your best, Laura. You can do it. Go get them, champ.

LAURA COLES: Kind of looking back now, probably thinking that you're going to win a medal at your first games is a little bit ambitious. So after I won, well, after I got into the final, it didn't matter what else happened, because I'd already made Shooting Australia happy because I'd made the final. So everything else was a bonus. And I just kind of enjoyed it and kind of rode the wave.

BEN WATERWORTH: First of all, I think you like, do you remember the psychic you went to? Give them a plug. They're obviously a pretty good psychic for starters.

LAURA COLES: I actually don't remember who they were. It was a psychic dinner that one of my friends had organised to go to. So it's kind of this random occurrence.

BEN WATERWORTH: Again, good for them. I like that. But just in terms of the competition format, because as you mentioned, you make a final. So at those Commonwealth Games, it's what you have a semi-final, the top two go to the gold, and then the bottom two and the top four go to the bronze. Is that standard? Is that uniquely Commonwealth Games? Because it's kind of one of these things that I always like talking to people who make a final at the Olympics, where you've got all like a Commonwealth Games. You've got in the back of your mind, I've got a medal either way. So it kind of, I like that aspect of shooting kind of does that sort of a gold medal match and a bronze medal match.

LAURA COLES: Yeah, it keeps changing. So the International Shooting Sports Federation keeps changing things, because they want to make it appealing for people viewing it. Because it's a really alternative sport, and they want to keep people interested, because if people aren't interested in it in the Olympics, then there's a chance it'll be taken out of the Olympic program. So it used to be that you would shoot your qualifying, and then you'd shoot a further round of 25 targets in the final if you made the top six. And that would be added to your existing qualification score. And I thought that that was actually quite confusing to viewers. So they then changed to the semifinal and final system. So your semifinal, which was your top six, would go and shoot 16 targets, and you were given no advantage at all from your qualification. And then the top two scorers from those 16 targets went to go on and shoot the gold medal match. And the third and fourth place shot for the bronze medal, and then it was for the 16 targets. But in the sport of clay target shooting, where normally you're qualifying, it used to be 75 targets for women. Now we've gone up and we've joined the men. We're now shooting 125 targets. To shoot over 16 targets and have medals awarded over 16 targets is intense pressure. And you can imagine, you know, one target in 16 is such a, you know, it's an important shot. So it really kind of, it used to really mean that we'd get a lot of sixth place people that would come into those semifinals, would go in and often win because they had nothing to lose. Whereas those that kind of come in had shot a really great qualification, had a whole pile of pressure existing on them already. And then add the pressure that there's only over 16 targets. And often, you know, you have people really fail. Not always, not always. I was lucky in that I handled the pressure at Commonwealth Games in that I was top qualifier in the first 75 targets, and I managed to keep that going. But because, you know, that they were getting kind of such crazy results, they changed after the 2016 Olympics to shooting kind of a 60 target final where you kind of would slowly lose people out of it. So you'd shoot 20 targets now before you lose anybody in a final, which means that the finals run a little bit longer. But it's kind of meant that you get a little bit more of a consistent result.

BEN WATERWORTH: It's always interesting the way they change formats and that, because one thing that we talked a lot during Tokyo is we always forget how exciting shooting can be. And it's obviously a sport in which in Australia, we only ever really do see it at an Olympics or a Commonwealth Games. But I mean, I sort of was watching it and just every Olympics, I just go, well, this sport is like tense. It's exciting. You're sitting there and you're just like, holy crap. If she misses this target, she is eliminated. Oh, she's hit it all. It's just really something about it that I feel is exciting. But I'm sad to learn that they kind of have to keep changing it on that often prospect that maybe it could get taken. Because I think of sports at the Olympics, to me, shooting is just one of these staples that should be at an Olympics, no matter what.

LAURA COLES: Yeah, well, it has. It's been at every single Olympics ever since the modern Olympics started. So it's one of the very, I think it's one of the six original sports. Yeah.

BEN WATERWORTH: Which is kind of like, yeah, like traditional element. And that's a big thing. I remember when they took wrestling off the cards, I think, like 2012, 2016, and the art brawl about that. And I would like to think that if they had threatened that with shooting, it would kind of be the same too, because I don't know, there's just something about shooting that it's kind of exciting. And I mean, we're an advocate on this show to kind of, when it comes to appealing to the kids, maybe adding some music. We did that with Sailing. We added some Pirates of the Caribbean. Boom, Sailing was exciting. Like James Bond theme.

LAURA COLES: Just every time you sort of, you know, make a shot, you know, they actually have added music in.

BEN WATERWORTH: Right.

LAURA COLES: So now we do. So that was one of the changes that came in with that 60 Target kind of final. So after Rio, we have been having music at our house.

BEN WATERWORTH: What sort of, what issue is it? Is it like James Bond theme, Mission Impossible music, or are you just kind of getting like, if you've got a beach volleyball style DJ kind of going like, pumping up the crowd, come on, yeah, let's hear it.

LAURA COLES: There is an official ISSF playlist.

BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, an official playlist. This is interesting.

LAURA COLES: Yes, it's an official ISSF playlist. It includes, you know, a wide variety of genres of music. And you really never know what you're going to get. You know, you get anything from like Cyndi Lauper, girls just want to have fun to like Michael Jackson through to like some electronic synth kind of music. It's all over the place.

BEN WATERWORTH: I'm trying to think, what are some, you know, you could have Nancy Sinatra, Bang Bang, My Baby, I'm just trying to go to the cliche, you know, what was that, Sia, Bulletproof, Nothing To Lose, Virus, some Titanium.

LAURA COLES: Yeah.

BEN WATERWORTH: Geez, you know, all the cliches kind of work that way. But does it help? Like, does it help you as a competitor to pump you up more, alleviate the nerves a little bit, having this official playlist going on in the background?

LAURA COLES: As a shooter, and particularly as a skeet shooter, we actually find that a little bit trickier because, you know, you've got that three seconds, where usually we've got three seconds of silence where we're waiting for that target to come out. And the only noise you will hear is the trap releasing the target. So some shooters can fall into the trap of listening for the trap to know when that target's coming. So if you put music over the top of that, obviously that makes it really hard if you're one of those people relying on hearing that trap to know that the target's coming. So it adds an extra element.

BEN WATERWORTH: It's not like a real clap your hands, get the crowd involved sport, is it?

LAURA COLES: Generally, no.

BEN WATERWORTH: It's not an eye jump or something like, oh yeah, I'm going to make this shot.

LAURA COLES: It's like golf. It's more like golf than like basketball.

BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, that's a good way of putting it. You mentioned before about Triumph for London. You mentioned about sort of selection criteria. You miss out on Rio. Now, can you explain what happened there? Because I can imagine as the reigning Commonwealth Games gold medallist, you're in with a pretty good darn shot to go to an Olympic Games two years later. I mean, how does that not help you get selected for the Rio Olympics?

LAURA COLES: Yeah. You know what, sport and politics can never be separated. You know, you're always going to have politics within sport. And unfortunately, I think I was a little bit of a victim of politics. You know, I kind of didn't really get along very well with our coach at the time. He was a Russian coach. I don't think he really liked women shooting. And I kind of used to question him a lot. And the kind of the straw that broke the camel's back was when I made a final at a World Cup in LA. And like it was my first final there in 2015, that I'd actually made the top six at a World Cup, which in itself is a really great achievement that not everybody gets that. But everybody else's coaches came and sat down onto the range with them to support them and help them if anything went wrong. And mine went and sat in the crowd. And I found out later from some of the New Zealand team who happened to sit behind him, that apparently he was on some social media app instead of actually watching me shoot. So I remember at another World Cup that year, our high performance manager asked me, he said that Val feels like he should be, or the coach feels like he should be thanked more. And I told him why I didn't think I should be thanking him more. And that kind of set up a big thing where we had to go into mediation. And I think I made life a little bit hard for that coach, which is unfortunate when you've got a selection criteria that ultimately says that the selection panel, which he was one of three people on the selection panel, has the ultimate say in who gets selected and who doesn't.

BEN WATERWORTH: So it's not even based on purely on performance. At the end of the day, you could be shooting world records, but if at the end of the day, the coach doesn't like you, they might not choose you.

LAURA COLES: For that particular selection criteria, that's what they could have done.

BEN WATERWORTH: Wow, that's insane to think that, because I would assume that any given sport, you want to send your best athletes. Like if Ian Thorpe is out there, the best swimmer in the world, and he's breaking world records, but he doesn't get along with one of the selection, but you still want to bloody send Ian Thorpe.

LAURA COLES: Well, if they say in their opinion, that someone else is a better selection, then that's what they could do, if you've got a subjective criteria like that.

BEN WATERWORTH: Can you appeal that then? Like if you are genuinely like, I am the better shooter here, send me, like is there a process?

LAURA COLES: And I did, I did appeal it. The appeals process in itself was kind of traumatic. My Institute of Sports did help me appeal. There was two of us that actually appealed, myself for the women's skate spot and another young guy for one of the men's trap spots. And we both had our appeals kind of rejected at the Australian appeals level. He was lucky that he had a bit more financial backing and he could afford to take it to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, where he actually won his appeal. But even if you win your appeal at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, they can only give a directive. And your sporting body can choose to take that directive or ignore that directive. So even though you may spend a whole pile of money on lawyers and winning battles, you know, it can all be for nothing anyway. So a lot of people say don't even bother appealing because it doesn't matter if you win and you probably won't win.

BEN WATERWORTH: That's insane. So what's that then like? You're arguably the best shooter in the country at the time. No disrespect to the athlete we did send to Rio, and you kind of gone through that process. You've lost that appeal. I mean, how are you able to kind of switch focus and go, I can go to my third, you know, third attempt and I'll be third time luckier because I can imagine that that must be so draining on you.

LAURA COLES: It was. It was. It was terrible. It was probably the, you know, I luckily I had already experienced failure before because I think the more you experience failure, the better you get at at, you know, coughing it and moving on. I was really lucky in that I have a really good support network around me. My husband is well, he wasn't my husband at the time, but he was amazing. He got me through that time. And I went and shot something different. I went and shot a discipline called Sporting Clays, which is a really popular version of clay target shooting at the moment, both here in Australia and internationally. And I kind of became a little bit more of a well-rounded shooter because, you know, it only shot one, a lot of one style of target. And then I've had to go and shoot something that's so completely different. It's kind of like cross training. You know, I went and I kind of really expanded my kind of knowledge as a shooter, which has definitely helped me. So even though it was incredibly hard to go through, it kind of has helped.

BEN WATERWORTH: I wouldn't like to hear.

LAURA COLES: Yeah, sometimes things do end up being for the better, probably, you know, in Rio, maybe when they've been as emotionally or technically prepared as I was for Tokyo.

BEN WATERWORTH: So with all that in mind, all that disappointment, that moment then that you punch your ticket to Tokyo, I'm imagining the qualification process may be changed or you just got a better coach, you liked you better. But I mean, like, what was that feeling like when you knew you were then finally third time lucky, an Olympian?

LAURA COLES: You know what, it was really weird. We did have a change in selection criteria. So the kind of first spot in every event was a spot that was kind of by kind of a few things that you had to tick off. You know, you had to win the most points. Whoever got the most points went. It wasn't about someone selecting you, which that was good. That was good to kind of know what I had to do to win that spot. And we did have a change of coach, which he kind of played a really pivotal role in kind of guiding me technically as well to change something that I needed to change, but was incredibly difficult to change. So I kind of went out on a limb, changed something really big technically, which was kind of good because it brought back the focus on to the process instead of the results. But the very last qualifier was back in March 2020. And I don't know if you remember what was happening in March 2020.

BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, yeah, just slightly. Something called COVID, or is that what it was called?

LAURA COLES: Yeah, COVID. COVID kind of went from, you know, I shot the third qualifier in Melbourne, and COVID in February was just like a little bit of a blip on the radar, like it had just started to come into Australia. And then by late March, the COVID situation was getting pretty serious. There was talk of cancelling that last qualifier, and if they'd done that, I was one point behind in qualifying. So I needed that, I needed that that qualify to go ahead. There was talk that maybe they'd move it from where it was in Sydney to being in Melbourne a week later. But luckily, they decided to run with it. They just stripped it back. So only the people that were in the running for the Olympics could attend. So took the numbers right down. We had to do all our social distancing stuff, and it went ahead. It was crazy. I remember I did have a little bit of an emotional breakdown in the days leading in, because it was just so much to take. But I think everybody was in that position, and I wasn't watching television because I didn't want to know what was going on in the world. And it was crazy. I had a really great qualifying, and I actually didn't even need to shoot the final to win qualifying. So that was amazing, but it kind of left me in the position, like, oh, my goodness, like I've made an Olympic team, but is this Olympics going to go ahead? Only like a few days after qualifying for that team, the Australian team was withdrawn from the...

BEN WATERWORTH: They were second behind Canada, remember? Canada withdrew, Australia withdrew, and the Games hadn't even been postponed at that point.

LAURA COLES: Yeah. Oh, my God. You go through all this huge journey to make an Olympic team, and then Australia is withdrawn from the Olympics. I thought, oh, my goodness. It just didn't want to happen. The universe has some thick sense of humour here. You know, it was such a roller coaster. And then, you know, luckily, it wasn't too long after that. The Games were postponed to 2021, but then it was a question of whether that original qualifying would stand, which the IOC took a few days to make their mind up about, which that was a few kind of scary days, I think, for all those that had already booked their spot. But I think that, you know, I'm really grateful that they did decide to honour the original qualifying, because I think that would just have been so emotionally demoralising for everybody that had already qualified.

BEN WATERWORTH: Which makes it a bit more unique then, because we've heard from so many athletes who, through that sort of delay, had to, yeah, they hadn't qualified at that point, or they had to add an extra year, whereas I guess once that decision has come down, a slight silver lining while waiting around for an Olympics is, you know, at least you're, I'm going this time, like, I will get to go to these Olympics whenever they bloody hold them.

LAURA COLES: Yeah, it was a real, like, unique kind of an experience, you know, knowing for over a year that you're going to go to a Games. I think it was really good in some ways, kind of not good in others, because, like, I came back from that last qualifying event in Sydney. I only just got back into Perth, so I came back on a Sunday. That Tuesday, WA closed their border to the rest of the, pretty much the whole world, including the rest of Australia. And we went into a 10-week, pretty hard lockdown here in WA. So I actually didn't even get to shoot for, like, three months after firing that last shot.

BEN WATERWORTH: You can't just do it in your backyard. You can't just say to the neighbours, hey, guys, just don't mind me firing a gun a few times a day.

LAURA COLES: Yeah, I'm pretty sure the neighbours would not have appreciated that at all. I think I probably would have had the SWAT team around my house to arrest me.

BEN WATERWORTH: I'm training for the Olympics! That's what they all say, come with me.

LAURA COLES: So yeah, it was really weird to not train for three months because, you know, through my whole career, I had only taken about two weeks off at the very most. So to actually not be able to train for three months, that was crazy. Like I had to almost relearn how to shoot again, which like that always comes with a bit of silver lining because you can kind of rewrite some bad habits. You kind of wipe that muscle memory clean a little bit. So it meant it was a little bit easier for me to rewrite my patterns how I wanted them. So it was kind of good. It was kind of like starting from the very beginning again, which that's when you've been working so long on something, technically to get it right, that can be frustrating as well.

BEN WATERWORTH: So then when you get to Tokyo, when you are there at the range, you are there for that competition after everything that you have gone through to get to that point. What's that moment like then just before you're about to fire your first shot? I mean, do you soak it in? Is it just another day at the office? I mean, kind of what's going through their head?

LAURA COLES: Of course you are soaking it in. It was, you know, there was a few moments there at the Olympics that were really amazing and kind of like pinched me because like, am I dreaming? But yeah, it was a little bit emotional to kind of finally make it. But I remember my first station, like I'm always on your first station. You're quite nervous. I probably wasn't as nervous though as I thought I was going to be. You know, shooting the biggest competition of your life. Like I thought I was going to be like really, really petrified. But I actually kind of held it together. I got a little bit rattled because I called for a target or something happened. I can't remember what it was like. A target came out before I'd even called and I had to kind of reset and the shell popped out of my gun and I was like, what's happening? So it was a little bit of a weird start. But after and I missed the target after, I let it kind of rattle me a little bit. But after that, I kind of settled in and, you know, shot my first round pretty well. But it was like, it was an intense, really, really intense round, you know.

BEN WATERWORTH: Did you set yourself a target? Oh, there we go again. Was it like, I can meddle? Like Commonwealth Games, you see a psychic beforehand or just tell yourself every day? Or was it just a case of I've made it to the Olympics or whatever happens happens?

LAURA COLES: It was kind of a little bit like I've made it to the Games. Whatever happens happens. Sometimes by setting yourself a goal to do something, like I would have loved to have made that final, love to have made a medal. That kind of was a goal, but I didn't really want to kind of grab a hold of that too tight. Sometimes when you do that, you can kind of make it harder to get to, if that makes sense. So I did want to. But yeah, I was trying to just focus on delivering my best performance, whatever that was on the day and wherever that got me, because you can't control how other people shoot. And you're kind of being compared against other people's performances, and there's nothing you can do to change someone else's performance. All you can do is focus on what your process and doing the best you can. And that's what I did.

BEN WATERWORTH: Are you tempted, though? Are you tempted to just whisper something to a shooter as they're about to go up? Like, you're going to miss, you're going to miss, you're going to miss. Are you allowed to do that if you want to do it?

LAURA COLES: Absolutely not, no.

BEN WATERWORTH: Miss it, miss it, miss it, miss it. Oh, you're disqualified.

LAURA COLES: Yeah, I think you would, if you did that, you would literally get red carded. It's kind of similar to soccer, you get, the referees can give you yellow cards. And, you know, if you two yellow cards and you get a red card and you're done.

BEN WATERWORTH: What do you get a yellow card for in shooting? Is it simply sledging or is it that positioning on the body you were saying? Because I don't see shooting as a sport, you should get a card.

LAURA COLES: You're right. So there's a few things you can get a card for. There's quite a few things. There's lots of rules. But one of those things is that position on your body. So if your gun's not all the way down to your line, you can get a card. You get a yellow card. You do that twice, and you get a red card or a lost target. And the same with we have time limits. So if you go over your time limit, if you purposely try to distract somebody, again, that's card.

BEN WATERWORTH: See, to me, bugger the music. This is where we want this happening. If you've ever seen baseball, when the whole part of that is to put them off their game. I want to see this. I just want to see the most creative way to put you off your target. I think that would be unique. Literally have an athlete run in front of you, I'm going to miss it, don't shoot me, and then just keep running.

LAURA COLES: Just throw things at people. Yeah, exactly.

BEN WATERWORTH: There's the IOC's model into keeping shooting in the Olympics. It's exciting already, but people would go off for that.

LAURA COLES: Oh, dear. It would be interesting. I don't know about throwing things at people that have gone for it.

BEN WATERWORTH: Yes, it might cause a few injuries potentially with that one. But you ultimately finish 25th, which again, like in Olympic games, you're an Olympic eventer. You witness a world record during your event as well. I mean, do you leave Tokyo sort of satisfied with your performance, or does it spur you on to go, OK, I didn't maybe do what I wanted to do on to Paris, and I can take the next level there?

LAURA COLES: I was definitely not satisfied with my performance in Tokyo. There was, you know, on the first day, I probably missed three silly targets that I shouldn't have. Just silly, like made a few mental errors, tightened up a little bit. And on the second day, my first round was good, but my second round, I just kind of had a bit of a meltdown, really. So yeah, I definitely want to come back, have another crack at Paris with a bit of Olympic experience already in my bag.

BEN WATERWORTH: Which, given less than a year away from a Commonwealth Games, kind of that unique cycle that we had. Obviously, you went to the Gold Coast as well, but do you then go and look at Birmingham and go, well, the last time I was on the British Isles, I came away with a gold medal. So I mean, you know, this is kind of, maybe it's, maybe I can't compete in Australia. That's not what I, it's the British Isles. That's where I go for and look towards bringing back that gold.

LAURA COLES: The thing is, shooting has been removed from the...

BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, I knew this. I knew this. We talked about this recently. Look at me remembering who I've interviewed on the show and we've talked about it.

LAURA COLES: That was, it was quite a big fuss made out of it. And India even threatened to boycott the Commonwealth Games because of the removal of shootings. You know, they get so many of their medals from shooting.

BEN WATERWORTH: We had Sergey on and talked about it, and he sort of mentioned about how, I mean, I said, like, if you don't piss off shooters, like if all the sports you want to remove, remove Equestria. I know it's not a Commonwealth sport, but I mean, what does a horse want to do, dance at your office? Like, you're freaking shooters. You have guns.

LAURA COLES: Yeah, yeah, it's a shame, you know, like there hasn't been many Commonwealth Games without shooting in the program. So that was a big kind of surprise to everyone, especially like Birmingham, like, you know, there's a really, really great shooters coming out of England. So for them to not have a home Commonwealth Games, it's a bit of a shame. And, you know, there was kind of a bit of an opportunity for them to showcase Birmingham in a way, because there's actually gun factories in Birmingham. But the problem was they didn't have a shooting range in Birmingham, which would have been really, really expensive and hard to find a location. You need quite a parcel of land. So the alternative is to run it on an existing range. But Birmingham wanted to keep everything within their program within Birmingham. So that's why they didn't choose to keep it in the program. Which is a shame. And we were meant to get a Commonwealth Federation shooting championships in India. But unfortunately, because of COVID, they have been cancelled. They were meant to be in January, and there was kind of all these rumours about whether those medals would be actually included into the Commonwealth medal tally, because that's what India wanted.

BEN WATERWORTH: One thing I love learning on this show, you're talking about the politics of sport and just these events as well. Obviously, all these multi-sport events are kind of getting stacked and they want to bring more, but then you've got to kind of sacrifice that. It's fascinating. I guess the unique thing with Birmingham too is they weren't the hosts of the games. They were not chosen. They were kind of the replacement games. So you wonder if Durban had gone ahead, you know, that would have gone there. But the silver lining I see is at least at the time of recording this, there's no 2026 host yet, and there's rumours going around that Sydney and New South Wales are going to put in a sneaky last-minute bid. So I can't see Australia going, no, we're not going to have shooting at the Commonwealth Games. So look, 2026 Sydney, if there's a Sydney Commonwealth Games.

LAURA COLES: That would be cool. We already have some pretty good shooting facilities there in Sydney.

BEN WATERWORTH: I've heard there's a few. So that might be seen there. But also, I can imagine there's a bit of longevity involved. I mean, we were talking about Michael Diamond before, obviously. Is it something that realistically you look to 2032, home Olympics in Brisbane, and set itself a goal that potentially that could be a case?

LAURA COLES: Absolutely, that's possible. You know, the men's skate Olympic bronze medallist from Kuwait, Al Rashidi, he's like late 50s, early 60s.

BEN WATERWORTH: Wow, you're a spring chicken. You'll be 45.

LAURA COLES: I'm only a baby.

BEN WATERWORTH: I'm looking to the 2040 Olympics, you know.

LAURA COLES: You know, start now.

BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah. God, keep going. That's incredible. But I mean, it is kind of a unique thing that we're finding with a lot of our Australian guests, is that, yeah, like a home Olympics are spurred on. We saw that with Sydney, that a bunch of athletes extended their careers a little bit because they had a prospect of a home Olympics. And now it's, I mean, we've had, you know, Matt Denny on this show saying that, oh, that's my fifth Olympics. I'm setting myself easy. Like, you know, that's a few more to go. So it's kind of that unique thing to really kind of spur you on to keep going.

LAURA COLES: Yeah, yeah, it would be a really cool experience. I've already, you know, we've already experienced the home Commonwealth Games there. So they experienced the home Olympics would be really special.

BEN WATERWORTH: Now, I don't know if you know the answer to this or not, but are they having the shooting at the same venue as they had at the Gold Coast for Brisbane?

LAURA COLES: I don't know the answer to that. There has been kind of rumours about how that gun club will be changing, because the range that the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games was held on actually hasn't been shot on ever since.

BEN WATERWORTH: Really? Wow.

LAURA COLES: It was built on kind of another association's grounds, and there's kind of been a whole pile of in-fighting about who should have the grounds and all that kind of thing, you know, sport and politics. And never be separated. So who knows? I think to hold an Olympics at those grounds in Brisbane that are existing, they probably need to sort out that dispute. If they want to use the existing grounds that was used for the Commonwealth Games or remodel the club that they already have there. Because it's funny, there's the existing Brisbane Gun Club, which overlooks the hill. You kind of look towards the Commonwealth Games range, which is on a SSAA range. Whereas the Olympic shotgun codes are kind of the rights are owned by the Australian Clay Target Association.

BEN WATERWORTH: There's a lot of layers. One thing I think too that I learned the most in this show is that we don't need to create fictionalised political shows. There's just Netflix shows we could have on the politics of all these federations, I feel. Like where's the House of Cards on the shooting politics? That's pretty exciting to me. And again, you guys have guns, so I wouldn't be pissing these people off in higher places. Now Laura, before we close it off with a series of fun questions that we like to do, one thing I want to learn a little bit more about, I believe you have a bit of a tradition before the night, before a competition that you like to eat a certain food. Is this true? And what is it? And where did this tradition come from?

LAURA COLES: Like, yes, it is. I'm probably not as like kind of obsessive compulsive about it as I used to be, but always before a competition, I would like I really enjoy like pan fried salmon. And that is what I would always eat before a competition. I've kind of learnt to not be too like pedantic about that because, you know, you go to Australia and we do a great job of cooking seafood. You go to other areas of the world, and sometimes that is not such a great option.

BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, like if you're in the middle of, I don't know, Russia, where there's maybe not an ocean nearby.

LAURA COLES: I've had some bad examples like out of Azerbaijan. That's right.

BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, the further away from an ocean, you question the safeness of a piece of seafood.

LAURA COLES: Yeah, that's right.

BEN WATERWORTH: And how did it start? Was it just a case of you ate it one night, you did well the next day, or this is a pretty good tradition, I'm going to keep up with it?

LAURA COLES: No, I'm an introvert, and I watch for patterns. Even though they might not be real, I make it real.

BEN WATERWORTH: That's how things start like that. My athletic career clearly has taken off, hence why I'm multiple whatever. But I remember when I played hockey, I was a goalie, and to me, I did the whole banging of the posts kind of superstition, and I think one time it worked. So that was to me every single time. I would bang it in a certain order before every game. I had to do it.

LAURA COLES: You know what?

BEN WATERWORTH: It just fits.

LAURA COLES: There's so many athletes that have routines out there like that.

BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah. I'm a big Formula One fan, and there was a Formula One driver, Alex Virts, who used to wear different coloured shoes. So he had a red and a blue boot. And I liked that so much that I went to school wearing different coloured shoes. I would wear two different shoes, and people would just go, why the fuck are you wearing two different shoes? And I'd explain it every single time. So, yeah, I don't do that anymore, just by the way. Now, Laura, we wrap up with a series of fun questions. Now, these are based on a questionnaire that Team Canada gave their athletes ahead of Rio and Pyeongchang. We always like to try and select an athlete from the same sport. Unfortunately, as when we've had shooters on before, we've said Canada never questioned a shooter, and if they did, they never published it. So I've gone with an archer, because again, archery targets similar. Crispin Duenis, the Canadian, the great Canadian archer who competed in Rio. Don't know how we went, sure he did well. So we're going to start off with your favourite ever Olympic moment is?

LAURA COLES: Oh, probably my favourite ever Olympic moment probably was Michael Diamond's medal from 2000. Like it being so emotional. But other than that, probably from the last games, my favourite Olympic moment was the women's relay swimming gold.

BEN WATERWORTH: Yes.

LAURA COLES: I think that was the best. Like they swim out of their skin to get that gold. You know, it was amazing to watch.

BEN WATERWORTH: Great answer. I like it. Have you had a chance to meet Michael, shoot with Michael, kind of shooting community, sort of close knit?

LAURA COLES: I was actually teammates with Michael back for the Glasgow Commonwealth.

BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, of course. Right. Fantastic. It must be pretty like, is it, you get a bit starstruck the first time you're there, and then all of a sudden you realise you're like teammates with this guy you were watching growing up?

LAURA COLES: Absolutely. I remember first kind of going into the international kind of version of clay target shooting, and, you know, meeting Russell Mark and Michael Diamond, and then like these people were like people that I saw on television. And I'm shooting in the same squads as some of these people that you see on television. And it was like, oh, my goodness, like it took me a little while to get over kind of being starstruck by these people. But when you actually get to know them, they're actually really great, normal people.

BEN WATERWORTH: And what's it then like when you can then say on the flip side of that, that you're shooting with someone like a Catherine Skinner, who you kind of teammates and you go along with, and she comes back from Rio with a bloody gold medal around her neck. Like, that's my bestie, Olympic gold medallist.

LAURA COLES: Yeah, it's amazing. It's crazy.

BEN WATERWORTH: And do you just want to wear a medal all the time? Like, you know, just, give us your medal, Catherine, come on.

LAURA COLES: You get asked that question, like, why aren't you wearing your medal?

BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, I really, we had Catherine on after Rio, and I think that was, I think maybe she was the birth of our question, where I asked, like, do you get free shit with your medal? And I think she was talking about trying to, whether she did try or she was going to try getting some McDonald's or something. I can't remember specifically what it was.

LAURA COLES: I think it was Ben and Jerry's.

BEN WATERWORTH: It was a Ben and Jerry, okay, yeah, right.

LAURA COLES: I do believe she got some free Ben and Jerry's.

BEN WATERWORTH: Good, yes.

LAURA COLES: That's, you know, like me eating my salmon, Ben and Jerry's was Catherine's secret to a blistering performance. That clearly works for her.

BEN WATERWORTH: I mean, clearly. I mean, this is what I like hearing about all these kind of like quirks and things that work. Like you go to a sidekick, they say you're going to win a Commonwealth Games medal. It works. Catherine eats Ben and Jerry's all the time, and boom, she wins a gold medal. So like, I mean, like there you go. See sidekicks eat ice cream. That's the secret to Olympic and Commonwealth Games success. Just saying for everybody out there as they're trying to be an athlete. If you could choose any Olympic host city, where would it be?

LAURA COLES: You know, I like the idea of Athens, because it's back to the original.

BEN WATERWORTH: Mm-hmm.

LAURA COLES: So, yeah, that would be, that would have been really cool to go and experience that.

BEN WATERWORTH: The few athletes we've had from Athens have said it was sort of, yeah, very unique experience to kind of have that. So, yeah, kind of the traditional, the home of the Olympics. In your spare time, what do you most like to do?

LAURA COLES: Oh, I love to spend time with my little dogs. I've got two little French Bulldogs. I like to take them for walks and, you know, cuddle them and play with them. I love spending time with my dogs.

BEN WATERWORTH: Can you take them to the range, or are they a bit skittish about guns?

LAURA COLES: No, because they've been there since they were puppies. They actually do come to the range with me sometimes, as long as it's not too hot, because they get sensitive to heat. And one of mine is like anaphylactic, allergic to bees. So I can't take him in spring, but he can come out other times, and they love coming out to the gun club. It's fun. They get other people to pat them.

BEN WATERWORTH: The weirdest instruction a coach ever gave you was, maybe when they went sitting in the stands on Facebook, basically.

LAURA COLES: Probably the weirdest instruction is, don't hop like frog, smooth like panther.

BEN WATERWORTH: Does that help in shooting? As long as it's helpful, right? They can tell you whatever. There you go. I like it. Your favourite workout is?

LAURA COLES: I actually really like yoga. Nice.

BEN WATERWORTH: From the mind, I can imagine in shooting, that kind of mental...

LAURA COLES: Yeah, mental, breathing, all that kind of thing. That's good for shooting.

BEN WATERWORTH: How much are you in the gym as a shooter? I can sit here as an armchair quarterback and think, ah, you don't need the gym. You just shoot a gun. But there's obviously a physical aspect to it. So what are you doing in the gym when you go to train?

LAURA COLES: So shooters never used to do gym stuff. Now, the bar is raising with shooting. And to get kind of those extra little bits out, we do need to be strong. We do need to be reasonably fit because, you know, sometimes it's a long day. And, you know, if you're starting to get a bit raggedy by the end of the day, you're not going to be giving your best performance, and you can't afford to be losing silly targets because you're getting a little bit fatigued. And it helps, you know, if you're staying fresh for longer, the better you can concentrate as well. So in the lead up to Tokyo, I actually did, we were doing a lot of heat training. So I was spending two days a week in a heat chamber on a bike. So I was doing a whole pile of aerobic exercise, which that is helpful. I actually feel, though, that you get more benefit from resistance exercise for shooting. The stronger you are, you get just that little bit more power out of your muscles. You might get a little bit of a better, quicker mount. The recoil isn't taking you off the line of the target as much. And you can make kind of fine adjustments a little bit better and a little bit more accurately. The stronger you are.

BEN WATERWORTH: I love hearing from athletes where like, yes, stereotypically, you don't think like, we've had a lot of curlers on the show and it's kind of like, ah, curling, you don't need. But like some of the stuff they're doing in gyms, like it just puts some of these other athletes to shame. So yeah, I like hearing that. If you could have lunch with any one person, who would it be?

LAURA COLES: You know who would be interesting? I reckon Donald Trump.

BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, yeah.

LAURA COLES: I reckon he would be one of the most interesting people to have lunch with.

BEN WATERWORTH: It's one of those things where, like, you know, you get the the Obama's and all this kind of stuff, like, you know, these people that are generally loved. But like it sometimes it would be interesting to have a person chat like, I remember I'd ask that question once, like the three people you would go to dinner with. And I literally said Hitler. And that's not because I admire the man, but like, imagine talking to Hitler. Like, it would be interesting. You'd be sitting there going, fuck mate, you're an idiot.

LAURA COLES: Just ask why?

BEN WATERWORTH: Exactly. You sit down at the dinner table. Hitler, how you doing? Good to meet you. Just one question. Why? That's all I'm going to ask you. That's it. That's it. Donald, please meet you. One question. Why? But interesting. Dinner, lunch conversation. Like, yeah, I like that. Your favourite sandwich is?

LAURA COLES: Oh, I really like chicken, cheese, avocado and tomato relish.

BEN WATERWORTH: Nice. Very specific. I like a toasted, non-toasted or toasted. And bread, sourdough, white, brown, multigrain.

LAURA COLES: Multigrain. Yeah.

BEN WATERWORTH: Okay. Sorry. Just I like to get hungry. I'm thinking about lunch ideas right now. If you could have any superpower, what would it be?

LAURA COLES: You know what? Ever since I was a little kid, I always wanted to be able to fly.

BEN WATERWORTH: Yes. Come in handy. And with the gun, like, you know, you have to do that. You know, like just doing that way. The best candy in the world is?

LAURA COLES: Oh, best candy? I reckon you can't go past an M&M.

BEN WATERWORTH: Good answer. Just a standard. You like the crispy, the peanut. Doesn't matter.

LAURA COLES: I like them all.

BEN WATERWORTH: Like them all. Yep. As a kid, your favourite sports team was?

LAURA COLES: The West Coast Eagles.

BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, no hesitation. I was going to say being from Western Australia, Eagles or Dockers. But I guess growing up, the reason I know your age, I think looking at your birth date, born about a month after I was. So you came into existence the same year the Eagles came into the AFL. So you were born when the Eagles were born, essentially. So at the time of recording this, it's AFL Grand Final Week. How exciting is it to have the Grand Final in Perth right now?

LAURA COLES: You know, it's crazy. There is definitely a buzz around town. Great. For the Grand Final, yeah.

BEN WATERWORTH: It's a beautiful stadium. I did a tour of it when I came to Perth, and it's an impressive venue. Speaking of just sports in general, your favourite sports movie is?

LAURA COLES: Cool Runnings.

BEN WATERWORTH: Yes, great answer. Love hearing that one as well. And it's kind of one of these ones I always talk about, you know, movies related to the sport. And I mean, shooting is just one of these ones where shooting is in every movie basically, isn't it? So, you know, it's... I don't know if there's a specific shooting movie about the sport of shooting, though.

LAURA COLES: No, I don't think there is a movie about somebody in clay target shooting. There's little appearances of clay target shooting in movies, but yeah.

BEN WATERWORTH: I always relate it back to James Bond as a Bond fan, and one of our sister shows is a James Bond podcast, but I know in Moonraker, they had The Pigeon, which is kind of like the clay, and Bond famously shoots the guy out of the tree rather than hitting the pigeon, so just think about Bond sometimes. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?

LAURA COLES: You know, I still would pick Perth. I do love Perth. It's beautiful, it's quiet. The only bad thing about it is it's so isolated, which is kind of being good with COVID, though.

BEN WATERWORTH: Yes, yes. Well, as a Tasmanian in Tasmania, like it's kind of maybe the one positive I can say about being in Tasmania right now is, hey, we can live normally, sort of. I just can't leave the island, basically. I love this one. When you were little, what was one thing you always thought?

LAURA COLES: Oh, when I was little? I always thought I wanted to be a fireman.

BEN WATERWORTH: You're still young. You can still do it after you're a kid. You talked about modern pentathlon before. Take off all the things. Olympic shooter, firefighter, hairdresser. You know, two more and you can do the career modern pentathlon. Now, again, the final one here. This is always one which you've always got one ready to go or you maybe struggle to get with. But what is your favourite joke to tell?

LAURA COLES: Yeah. Um, I don't tell too many jokes, but my husband always tells this one, which is, what's black, red, and screams?

BEN WATERWORTH: I don't know, what is black, red, and screams?

LAURA COLES: Stevie Wonder answering the iron.

BEN WATERWORTH: Wow.

LAURA COLES: Yeah.

BEN WATERWORTH: Yep. That's on that note.

LAURA COLES: All right.

BEN WATERWORTH: Sorry, I mentioned Hitler before, we can end on a joke like that, it's fine. Just ticking it off the list, I like it. I feel like I always give this opportunity now for you to give a social media plug, but also I feel plug your husband, if these are the type of jokes he's going to maybe put out on social media, if people want to follow this. But if people want to follow you, Laura, where can they check you out on social media?

LAURA COLES: Okay, so on Instagram, you can follow me on Miss Laura Coles or if you want to check out my husband, the real Nico one.

BEN WATERWORTH: The real Nico one.

LAURA COLES: The real Nico one.

BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, I keep following the fake one.

LAURA COLES: He probably doesn't have as good a jokes as the real Nico.

BEN WATERWORTH: Exactly. Jokes like that. Laura, it's been an absolute pleasure learning about your story and everything else in between, just incredible sort of hearing about all that journey it was to get to Tokyo, but we look forward to seeing you in Paris at the 2026 Sydney Commonwealth Games when shooting comes back and all the way right up to the 2032 Brisbane Olympics. By then, you're going to be a two-time Olympic gold medallist, so you'll be on home soil going for a three-peat. So we appreciate it, Laura. Thank you very much for joining us on the show.

LAURA COLES: Thanks so much, Ben.

BEN WATERWORTH: And a massive thanks to Laura, they're so insightful. And who would have ever thought that in an interview with an Olympic shooter, we could mention both Donald Trump and Hitler? There you go, tick it off the bucket list if you're playing Off The Podium Bingo at home. In the meantime, while you're ticking it off the bucket list, stay up to date with the show. Follow us on all the social media channels, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, search Off The Podium. Like us or follow us, whichever one is the one that you're following us on. That makes sense in your head, Ben. Also, subscribe to the show on all good podcast platforms, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, you name it, we're on it. Search for us, hit the subscribe button, leave us some feedback. We'd love to hear what you think of the show. And as always, shoot us a message. How do you think the show's going? Who would you have lunch with? We want to know. And if there's anybody you want us to track down or get on the show or kind of just a style of episode you'd like us to maybe cover. So we're always open to ideas and we always love hearing from you, the listeners at home. Big thanks again to Laura once again for her time. Big thanks again for you for listening. My name is Ben. This is Off The Podium. And as always, go a left.