Audrey Gogniat impresses with consistency and nerves of steel in winning the bronze medal in the 10 m air rifle competition.
29.07.2024, 11:34
29.07.2024, 11:56
SDA
Shortly after the competition, Audrey Gogniat was initially puzzled. She was not yet aware of what she had achieved, that she, like Heidi Diethelm-Gerber eight years ago in Rio de Janeiro and Nina Christen three years ago in Tokyo, had secured the first Swiss medal at these Summer Games.
"First Swiss medal? I didn't even know that," she said, surprised. But she was naturally proud to be mentioned in the same breath as her predecessors. "Heidi and Nina used to be role models for me."
Impressive consistency
The 21-year-old from the canton of Jura was among the top eight shooters in the qualifying final from the outset and withstood the pressure throughout the rest of the competition, keeping her nervousness to a minimum. She showed impressive consistency in a competition at the very highest level. With one exception, all of her shots were worth 10.0 to 10.8 points.
Once again, Audrey Gogniat was ready when it counted. She has often demonstrated this ability on the international stage. At the beginning of March, she won bronze at the European Championships in Györ in Hungary, also with the air rifle over 10 m, and last year she secured gold at the European Games in Krakow in Poland alongside Christen and Chiara Leone.
Only two Asian teenagers were better than the French-speaking Swiss on Monday. The 16-year-old South Korean Ban Hyojin, who had already been the best in the qualification the day before, became Olympic champion ahead of the 17-year-old Chinese Huang Yuting.
Father of the sponsors
The father of the Swiss medal winner was also sitting in the spectator stands at the facility in Châteauroux, around 250 kilometers south of Paris. Roland Gogniat, once a gifted marksman himself, had introduced his daughter to the sport of shooting. Audrey Gogniat was seven years old at the time, but her enjoyment and desire to shoot remained modest at first. In hindsight, the modest interest was just right for her: "I never got tired of shooting."
It would be some time before Audrey Gogniat looked at shooting from a different perspective. It took an unpleasant event to change her mind. At the age of 14, she fell off her horse. The pelvic injury she suffered kept her away from shooting for two months. It was a phase in which she realized that she was missing something without her sport - even though she was still performing at a low level.
Two years later, her performance was already completely different. Audrey Gogniat became Swiss junior champion. The foundations had been laid, her ambition awakened and the belief in her own abilities had finally taken root in the Romande's mind.
Thanks to her tenacity and her willingness to subordinate everything to success, the shooter from Le Noirmont knew how to make the most of her talent. On Monday for the first time on the biggest stage possible.
