Nine members of Australia's 15-member Tokyo Olympic Games Shooting team will be in action when the Brisbane Cup for Rifle and Pistol athletes is conducted at the Brisbane International Shooting Centre at Belmont between May 14-16.
The Olympic team members will be joined in action from tomorrow by Australia's top Para Shooting athletes who will be pressing their claims to win selection in the Australian team for the Tokyo Paralympic Games which commences in August.
The Brisbane Cup is the penultimate National Performance Series event for Australia's Olympic Rifle and Pistol team members before the Tokyo Olympics which commences on July 23.
The Pistol team members in action are Dan Repacholi (NSW), who will contest his fifth Olympic Games in Tokyo, Elena Galiabovitch (Vic), Sergei Evglevski (Vic) and Brisbane local Dina Aspandiyarova (Qld) who will attend her fourth Olympics in Tokyo.
The Tokyo Rifle team members on show are Olympic debutants Elise Collier (Vic), Katarina Kowplos (SA) and Alex Hoberg (SA), and they will be joined by Jack Rossiter (SA) and Queenslander, Dane Sampson, who will be attending his third Olympics in July.
Sampson, from Coominya, is in hot form in the 50m Rifle Three Positions event having twice broken his Australian National record in recent months. He will also contest the 10m Air Rifle and Mixed 10m Air Rifle Teams event in Tokyo.
Sampson's record score in the 50m Rifle Three Positions events at the Target Rifle South Australia Championships two weeks ago was superior to the 2016 Rio Olympic Games and the 2018 World Championships gold medal winning scores set by Italy's Niccolo Campriani (458.8 points) in 2016 and Poland's Tomasz Bartnik (460.4 points) in 2018.
The Pistol team has prepared for the Brisbane Cup with a training camp at BISC this week under the direction of National Pistol Coach, Vladimir Galiabovitch.
The BISC range holds fond memories for Repacholi, Evglevski and Elena Galiabovitch who each won medals at the venue at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.
The Para Sports Australian team athletes competing at BISC are Brisbane's 2012 London Paralympic Games 10m Air Rifle bronze medallist, Natalie Smith, Brisbane Rifle athlete Glen McMurtrie, Bundaberg Pistol athlete Chris Pitt, and WA's 2016 Rio Olympic Games Rifle competitor Anton Zappelli.
The Performance Series leaderboards and results can be viewed at Leaderboards – Shooting Australia
The Brisbane Cup event schedule is available here
