Jennifer McIntosh hopes she can become a trailblazer for British female rifle shooters after securing Team GB a quota place for the 2016 Rio Olympics.
After coming so close to securing a quota place in previous competitions, McIntosh finally delivered as she finished fourth in the 3x20 final at the European Championships in Maribor.
And that was good enough to see her secure a quota place for Rio, meaning a British female rifle shooter will compete at a non-home Olympics for the first time in nearly three decades, the last athlete to do so being Sarah Cooper at the 1988 Games.
The result means Team GB’s shooting team now hold a total of four quota places going into the Games with Ed Ling, Elena Allen and Amber Hill all gaining shotgun quotas at previous competitions, and McIntosh was delighted to have played her part.
“I feel relieved at the moment. It’s been quite a difficult season, I’ve come really close a couple of times, but to have done it now, it’s that box ticked and I can relax a bit,” she said.
"For me personally, I’ve always wanted to win a quota place at the Olympics. At London it was automatically allocated so feels like I’ve really earned this myself through a lot of hard work and determination.
"I felt a fair amount of pressure going into the match but I had a lot of experience to draw on to help me deal with that.
"It’s the first time since the 80s that we will have a female rifle shooter at a non-home Olympics and I hope that my performance shows that it doesn’t take any kind of black magic to get to become an Olympian, it’s all about hard work and a relentless determination.
"I think the structure British Shooting has put in place has been really beneficial. It has helped me get in the right a state of mind and when we're united as a group it definitely helps.
"I can't thank UK Sport and the National Lottery enough for supplying the funding to make it all possible."
© Sportsbeat 2015