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Nathan Hales held his nerve when it mattered most to seal Great Britain’s first shooting gold medal since London 2012 in Chateauroux on the outskirts of Paris on Tuesday,
As his rivals slowly fell away in the six-man final, the Chatham 28-year-old rose to the occasion to nail his last 18 consecutive shots and bag an Olympic record into the bargain in the men’s trap event.
Hales’ final score of 48 left him four points clear of China’s Ying Qi – the only competitor he had trailed after two days of qualifying – with Guatemala’s Jean Pierre Brol taking bronze.
“I really enjoyed the whole thing and I’m so pleased to be able to set an Olympic record as well as win the gold medal,” said Hales, who was watched by family and friends including his girlfriend, the former two-time Olympian Charlotte Kerwood.
“There were a lot of nervy moments and a lot of pressure but both qualification and the final could hardly have gone better.
“It was just about keeping everything as we always do, treat it exactly the same as when we compete finals in training.
“It’s only when you stop to think that you realise that so many people were watching you and the sport you’ve done for years is on television back home.”
It was a remarkable performance from Hales, who, despite winning a silver medal at the World Championships in Osijek in 2022, was considered less of a medal bet than his team-mate, the Tokyo bronze medallist Matt Coward-Holley.
But while Coward-Holley fell away over two days of qualifications, Hales came on strong to seal his place in the top six behind only the Chinese competitor.
Making his Olympic debut, Hales continued to show few signs of nerves, missing just one of 25 shots in the first phase of the final to rank top, one in front of Qi.
Heading into the final phase, in which the lowest-scoring shooter was eliminated after every five shots, Hales nudged in front by one after 35, following a double miss by Qi.
That was the crucial juncture as the elimination of Sweden’s Rickard Levin-Andersson guaranteed Hales a medal, and when Brol departed it meant Hales and Qi were the last two standing in a 10-shot shoot-out for gold.
In fact such was Hales’ superiority that he entered the final phase with a three-point cushion, and although he could have afforded a handful of slip-ups, he powered over the line to become Britain’s first Olympic champion in the discipline since Bob Braithwaite in 1968.
