Amber Rutter shoots her way to silver

Team GB’s Amber Rutter said it was a “dream” to clinch Olympic silver in the skeet final, despite being denied a chance of gold by a controversial judge’s decision in the shoot-off.

Amber, 26, finished tied on 55 shots from 60 targets with Chile’s Francisca Crovetto Chadid in the main event. They were still tied after three rounds in the shoot-off but judges contentiously ruled that Amber had missed a shot which slow motion replays showed she hit.

She immediately looked at her coach and they contested the call, but with no video assistant referee or other backup system, the judges’ decision stood.

Crovetto Chadid’s next two shots hit the target to clinch her country’s first-ever shooting gold medal. Austen Smith of the United States took bronze with 45 shots.

Former world champion Amber was competing just over three months after giving birth to her first child, Tommy, and was surprised afterwards by her husband James, who had brought their son to the Châteauroux Shooting Centre in France.

She was gracious about being denied a potential gold medal, saying other shooters had suffered similar judging errors and it was just one of those things.

“It is just a dream,” she told BBC Sport. “The fact that I’m able to be a mum and come away with a medal for my country, I am on top of the world right now.”

Amber, who missed the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 after contracting Covid-19, added: “The fact that I am able to be here, I believe everything happens for a reason. It really was to prove a point and come back here and really chase down those medals.

“I am here now, Tommy with me and with an Olympic medal, so I don’t know how it gets much better than this.”

It was Team GB’s second shooting medal at the Paris Olympics after Nathan Hales won gold by setting a new Games record in the men’s trap shooting final.

Amber is an ambassador for cartridge manufacturer Eley Hawk and a former BBC Young Sports Personality of the Year. To find out more about the Olympic shooting disciplines, head to the British Shooting website here.

Image Credit: British Shooting/ISSF/Nathalie Gallois.