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Potent Aussie world champ qualifies for fifth Olympics

Roar Guru
9th April, 2016
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It was announced on Friday (8/4/16) that Sydney shooter and current World Champion Warren Potent has qualified for the Australian shooting team for the Rio Olympics.

This will be the fifth Olympic appearance for the 54-year-old.

Potent earned a quota spot when he clinched the 50-metre Prone Rifle World Championship title in Granada, Spain in 2014.

As earning a quota spot does not guarantee an athlete of a ticket to Rio, the pressure remained for Potent to keep up his form. Potent was narrowly edged out of first place in the World Cup event held during March in Bangkok, Thailand. Potent was beaten by Dane Torben Grimmel by 0.8 of a point in the head to head elimination final.

By qualifying for the finals in the Bangkok round of the World Cup Potent had done enough to earn the team another quota place and to cement his place on the plane to Rio.

Potent is currently ranked Number 1 in the World for the 50m Prone Rifle event and is current World Champion. In his previous Olympic appearances Potent finished 32nd in London 2012,won Bronze in Beijing 2008, 42nd in Athens 2004 and 19th in Sydney 2000.

Potent is 54-years-old and hails from Currans Hill in NSW. He is married and works in sales when he doesn’t have a gun in his hand. He is a member of the Legion Target Rifle club, who are based at the Sydney International Shooting Centre (SISC) at Cecil Park in Sydney’s west.

The SISC was the home of shooting for the Sydney 2000 Olympics.

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Potent is another unheralded Aussie leading the world in his chosen sport, and like many of our sportsmen and women does not get nearly the amount of assistance and funding as the athletes in the glamour sports.

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