Author: onfvugh

Shooting genes produced a silver lining

By Greg Campbell

James Nomarhas always had the genes to be a world class Pistol athlete, but he never knew his pedigree for Shooting until after he captured a silver medal at the 1996 Atlanta Paralympic Games.

In his pursuit to find a sport where he could excel with cerebral palsy, Nomarhas tried track and field and swimming, but without success.

He said he impersonated the “sinking Titanic” when in the pool and tried “chuck, throw and heave”, more commonly known as discus, javelin and shot put, but found the throwing actions placed too great a strain on his back.

It wasn’t until he met Australian Paralympic Pistol and Rifle athlete, Keith Bremner, in the early 1990’s that he decided to try Shooting.

“I never knew there was Shooting for people with disabilities, so I decided to give it a go,” said Nomarhas.

Within a few years, Nomarhas won Australian team selection for the 1994 FESPIC Games in Beijing.

“That was real fun and an eye opener,” recalled Nomarhas.

It was only when his aunty Katina showed him an item from a Greek newspaper from the 1960’s after the Sydney 2000 Paralympic Games that he learned his father Sam won a shooting competition while he served in the Greek Army.

“That’s the weird thing. I didn’t know he had won an Army Shooting competition. He served in a machine gun company but, like many from the War, didn’t discuss his time in the Army,” he said.

Nomarhas earned selection for the Atlanta Paralympics and was thrilled to return home with the silver medal in the Mixed Sports Pistol SH1 event.

Also competing on the line with Nomarhas was Bremner and Iain Fischer, but only Nomarhas qualified for the final.

In the final, the event was dominated by Russian soldier Andrey Lebedinskiy who easily captured the gold medal scoring 683.2 with Nomarhas (660.7) holding off the fast-finishing German, Roland Hartmann, to claim the silver medal.

“I was just so focused. I didn’t know what was going on. The match went for around two hours, but I can only remember about 15 minutes,” he said.

“At the end, I asked my coach how I went. In the greatest understatement of the year, he said I went reasonably well,” he said.

With a Paralympic Games silver medal safely tucked away, Nomarhas was then a member of the 10-member Australian Shooting team for the Sydney 2000 Paralympic Games which also included the legendary Libby Kosmala and the late Ashley Adams.

In a busy competition schedule, Nomarhas was also entered for the Mixed Free Pistol SH1 and the Men’s 10m Air Pistol SH1 events.

Nomarhas’ hopes to emulate his Atlanta podium success in the Mixed Sports Pistol SH1 event were undermined when severely hampered by rheumatoid arthritis at the Games.

Competing alongside Nomarhas at the Sydney Paralympics were Peter Tait and Jeff Lane, with Tait qualifying for the final where he claimed the silver medal, while Nomarhas missed qualifying for the final by just three points.

Nomarhas also finished 10^th in the Mixed Free Pistol SH1 where he missed the final by a mere one point.

In addition to his illness, Nomarhas admits he was unable to replicate the same steely-minded focus that he was able to produce in Atlanta.

“Sydney was the best Games. It was brilliant,” he enthused.

“It was an interesting time competing in front of family and friends. I tried to get the same focus, but I got a bit carried away,” he added.

Nomarhas was selected for his third Paralympic Games in Athens in 2004 and the experience was particularly gratifying given his Greek heritage.

In Athens, Nomarhas lined-up for one event, the Mixed Sports Pistol SH1, and finished 10^th again after missing qualifying for the final again by a mere three points.

After Athens, Nomarhas stepped down from chasing Australian team selection.

“It was costing me a lot of money to compete and it was affecting my family life,” he said.

He continued to shoot on home soil and broke the Australian P1 10m Air Pistol record when setting a new mark of 556 at the National Championships held in Cessnock in 2009 – a record which remains in place today.

Now aged 69 and living in Wallendbeen with his wife Carole, just outside Cootamundra, Nomarhas continues to shoot socially at Young and Harden Pistol Club.

The Vella fella aimed up for gold medal success

By Greg Campbell

Adam Vella enjoyed a celebrated international Trap and Double Trap Shooting career highlighted by four Commonwealth Games gold medals, nine World Cup and Oceania Championship titles, plus an Olympic Games bronze medal.

While Vella proudly represented the green and gold of Australia for more than two decades in a decorated international career, he could have easily been wearing the red and white colours of Malta.

When he was rising through the world rankings prior to the 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games, Maltese officials learned that Vella’s father was born in Malta and emigrated to Australia when aged five.

In 2002, Malta was to host a competition for European nations and, even though he was born in Melbourne, Vella was a prime target to join their ranks.

While the offer to compete in a one-off competition for Malta had appeal, Vella quickly learned that he would be prohibited from representing Australia for four years and soon declined to participate.

“Once you get released from Australia, you then have to wait four years before they take you back,” Vella said at the time.

Malta’s loss was soon Australia’s gain when Vella combined with 1996 and 2000 Olympic Games Men’s Trap gold medallist, Michael Diamond, to win the Men’s Trap Pairs at the 2002 Manchester Games.

It proved to be the beginning of a dominant Commonwealth Games partnership with the duo capturing the Men’s Trap Pairs on home soil at the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games and then again at the 2010 New Delhi Commonwealth Games.

They were only denied a fourth consecutive gold medal when the Men’s Trap Pairs event was not included on the competition program at the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games.

Following his Manchester Games gold medal, the Frankston Clay Target Club member captured the first of his two Men’s Trap World Cup Final victories months later before winning the World Cup event in Perth at the beginning of 2003.

In Perth, Vella also won silver in the Men’s Double Trap before collecting a further silver in Men’s Double Trap in the World Cup event in New Delhi.

Together with World Cup silver medals in the Men’s Trap in New Delhi and Lonato, Vella’s world ranking in both Trap and Double Trap soared and he became the first person ever to be ranked world number one in both events.

Despite his outstanding performances on the international circuit, Vella’s career was mostly overshadowed by Diamond.

As the focus of the 2004 Athens Olympic Games drew tighter, all eyes were on whether Diamond could emulate the feats of women’s 100m freestyle legend, Dawn Fraser, and become the first Australian male Olympian to win an individual gold medal in three successive Olympics.

Competing in hot, windy conditions in Athens, Diamond could only manage 119 from 125 targets in the qualifying round and was a shock exclusion for the six-man final. Vella downed 121 targets to qualify fifth for the final.

After missing his third target, Vella was faultless for the remainder of the final and leap-frogged into the bronze medal position behind the peerless Russian, Alexei Alipov, and Italy’s Giovanni Pellielo.

Despite his early hiccup, Vella was steely focused and only glanced at the scoreboard with three shots remaining and, disbelievingly, saw that he was placed third.

“I’m looking at the board thinking ‘that can’t be right’. I didn’t know where I was. It wasn’t until the last shot that I turned to my coach and knew it,” he said at the time.

Months later, Vella later proved that his Olympic medal wasn’t a fluke when capturing his second World Cup Final gold medal in Slovenia.

Vella continued his great international form and regained the Men’s Trap world number one ranking in 2007.

But despite this record, Vella was controversially overlooked for Olympic team selection by a single target for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing where Diamond and Craig Henwood were the preferred Australian team choices.

Unbowed, Vella savoured Olympic Games selection at the 2012 London and 2016 Rio Olympic Games but was unable to qualify for the final.

But in the lead-up to the Rio Olympics, Vella enjoyed another memorable career moment when winning the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games individual Men’s Trap gold medal.

He was the silver medallist behind Diamond at the 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games and was placed fourth in the event at the 2010 New Delhi Games.

Shooting in Carnoustie, Vella snuck into the semi-final round as the last of six finalists with Diamond topping the scoreboard.

Vella marched through to the four-man final with a perfect score of 15 targets while Diamond managed 12 and earned a place in the bronze medal match, which he ultimately lost to India’s Manavjit Sandhu.

In the gold medal match against England’s Aaron Heading, Vella was in control until nerves kicked in and he missed three successive targets.

‘I thought I wasn’t going to miss, that was the problem. And when I did miss it put me on the back foot. I made the fatal error of trying to adjust and didn’t attack the target,” said Vella.

“By the time I worked out to keep attacking, I had let three (targets) go. I was trying to find my rhythm and my heart-rate was up, but I pushed through to the end.

“After getting silver in Manchester, it was a long haul to get the (individual) gold. Good things come to those who wait and it’s nice to get this one under my belt,” he added.

Following the Rio Olympics, Vella was appointed as Australia’s National High Performance Shotgun Coach and guided the Trap and Skeet athletes at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.

Vella ultimately stepped down from the post at the end of the 2018 international season and concentrated on his Oz Shooting coaching, corporate shooting and events business.

An international sports career involves many sacrifices and support from family, friends and team staff. And as he proudly views his swag of medals and trophies, it proves that it was all worth the many years of effort.

Potent by name, potent by ability

By Greg Campbell

Here’s a sports trivia question.

Name an athlete who has claimed two World Championship titles 28 years apart and captured an Olympic medal along the way?

No idea? Try Warren Potent.

Warren Potent is not a name which immediately springs to mind in the list of Australian sports greats, but the five-time Olympic Rifle shooter deserves to be listed in elite company.

In an amazing career, Potent captured his first World Championship title in 1986 as the rookie 24-year old member of the Australian 50m Rifle Prone Team, and later seized his individual 50m Rifle Prone World title in Grenada, Spain in 2014 at the ripe age of 52 years.

Throw in his 2008 Beijing Olympic Games bronze medal, four Commonwealth Games medals including a gold, and over 11 World Cup and Oceania Championship gold medals, then you have an understanding why Potent is regarded as one of Australia’s all-time Shooting greats.

Like many other Australian sports champions, Potent fell into Shooting by accident as a 16-year old schoolboy in Sydney’s western suburbs.

At the time, Potent was a rising, enthusiastic tennis player and was invited by a mate to go have a shot at Blacktown Rifle Range. Potent enjoyed the experience and returned every fortnight.

At the end of season Awards evening, Potent was presented with the Encouragement Award.

“It encouraged me to keep going. After playing tennis for so many years and getting nothing and doing shooting for six or eight months and getting a trophy, I thought this is pretty good,” he recalled.

Potent quickly rose through the club, state and national ranks and was named as the team rookie, alongside seasoned international Olympic athletes Don Brook and Alan Smith, in the Australian 50m Rifle Prone Team to contest the 1986 World Championships held in Suhl.

At the time, Suhl was behind the Berlin Wall in East Germany and the memories remain vivid for the amiable Potent.

“It was very interesting. During the Opening Ceremony, you knew who the good guys were and who the bad guys were. Apparently, we were the bad guys” he said.

“It was amazing to go away on my first trip overseas and come back as a world champion and share a world record with two friends,” he said.

Despite his World Championship gold medal, Brook and Smith were preferred selections for the Australian team at the 1988 Seoul Olympics and Potent was named a reserve.

“I wasn’t disappointed. I am a realist. I know how things work. Alan Smith and Don Brook were better shooters than I was at that time,” he said.

Potent then slipped out of high level Shooting for several years to dedicate his time to a business franchise before he was drawn back to the scene after Sydney was awarded the 2000 Olympics in 1993.

“Winning the (Olympic) Bid whet my appetite again and I decided to give it ago. I started training again and started to make teams again,” he said.

In 1998, he attended the first of his four Commonwealth Games and picked up the bronze medal in the 50m Rifle Prone Teams event with Timothy Lowndes.

His Olympic Games dreams were realised at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, the first of his five Olympics, where he finished 19^th.

“I walked away knowing that was the best I could do. I walked away without any ‘what ifs ‘and that’s what I was happy about,” he said.

He was dogged by illness at the 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games, was hampered by the heat at the 2004 Athens Olympics, “not my best experience,” and was out of the medals at the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games.

But later in 2006 at the World Championship in Zagreb, he switched to a new Swiss-made rifle and suddenly a new Shooting world opened.

“My mental outlook was different. I always got really nervous, but this day was different. I shot one iffy shot and I knew exactly why and where,” he recalled.

“That one shot changed my whole mental perspective, and I went through and made the final. After that, I gained so much confidence and, for some reason, I had a lot of fun and I found everything easy for a long time,” he added.

Between 2007 and 2010, Potent was a force on the international stage peeling off seven World Cup victories, including a record-breaking three wins in 2009, plus the gold medal at the 2008 World Cup final in Bangkok.

He also became Australia’s first and only Olympic Rifle medallist when capturing the bronze medal in the individual 50m Rifle Prone at the 2008 Beijing Games.

Potent arrived as one of the gold medal favourites and shot an impressive five consecutive scores of 99 out of 100 in the qualifying round before a perfect sixth and final round score of 100 saw him ranked fourth for the final.

But with qualifying scores carrying forward into the final, Potent was at long odds to claim the gold medal from Ukraine’s Artur Ayvazyan who shot a near perfect qualifying score of 599 out of 600.

“Knowing that I always have been a reasonably good finals shooter, I knew I had a chance of climbing up and getting on the dais,” he said.

In the final, Potent registered 105.5 – the best score of all finalists – to jump into the bronze medal position, a mere 2.2 points from the gold medal.

“It was probably three shots to go when I realised I was coming third. I got really wound up, the nerves really started kicking in, the heart rate really pounded, and the last three shots were phenomenally good,” he said proudly.

“I always wanted to be an Olympian ever since I was a little kid, and I finally got to go onto the dais at an Olympic Games. I think I was the most excited person on the dais,” he added.

Making the moment even more emotional was the passing of his mother Joyce three months prior to the Games after a battle with Alzheimer’s.

“Loved ones certainly help to inspire you,” Potent said after receiving his bronze medal.

“She would’ve probably been my biggest fan, from junior days to now. I thought about her just before I started qualification. I got a bit emotional before I started and told myself to pull `yourself together and get going’,” he said at the time.

Potent continued to represent Australia at the 2010 New Delhi Commonwealth Games picking up silver medals in the individual and teams 50m Rifle Prone events but failed to reach the final at the 2012 London Olympics.

Having made the decision in 2013 to retire after the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, 2014 was a year of immense satisfaction for Potent where he finally captured an elusive Commonwealth Games gold medal in Glasgow before triumphing at the World Championship in Grenada.

“Qualifications went good, I shot consistently right to the end. I just let it happen. In the final I just shot as good as I could,” he said of his performance in Grenada.

While Potent will continue to shoot with the Legion Club in Sydney, his international retirement could not have been better timed with the 50m Rifle Prone event removed from the Tokyo Olympic competition program next year.

“It’s a shame to be honest. A lot of people, who probably would have made it to an Olympic Games,  won’t be able to now,” he said.

Instead they will be relying on World Championships to define their sports careers. And as Potent has shown, Shooting is a sport where time is on your side.