Satu Mäkelä-Nummela has the last chance to get a place at the Paris Olympics, when next week’s European Championships there is one Olympic place for women’s trap.
Paris Olympics 26.7.–11.8. Ylen channels.
Trap shooting Olympic champion The fairy tale Mäkelä-Nummela is already aiming for his fifth Olympic Games, but a place in the Paris Games is still missing. Next week is the last chance for that at the European Championships in Italy.
– One place is shared there. It’s a bit of a sad situation, I’ve never been in this situation where the place hasn’t been secured the year the games are held. Now that it’s the last rough patches, it’s always much more “squeezing”, that now you have to succeed, Mäkelä-Nummela said.
Mäkelä-Nummela won the Olympic gold in trap shooting in Beijing 2008. In the Olympics after that, the rankings have been 7th, 10th and 24th. This season, the results have been weak. The reasons can be found at least partly in technical problems.
– The technology has just trickled down little by little in the wrong direction. Learning a mistake happens very quickly, and when you unlearn a mistake, it requires a shocking number of correct repetitions. The butt of the gun may be a centimeter too low, but the position feels the same, Mäkelä-Nummela described.
However, it is possible to grab an Olympic spot, even if based on Mäkelä-Nummela’s own comments, it sounds like a challenge.
– It’s all up to you, but when it’s been really sad, doing this yourself. You never know when there will be such an “aha-thing” that all the pieces will fall into place. Nothing helps but to believe in your own doing.
– As long as the last puck is not shot, that’s how long we will do it to the fullest. I have to break pucks a lot. There are still many shooters out there who have a chance to compete.
Mäkelä-Nummela already has a long career behind her, but she has seriously applied for a place in her fifth Olympics.
– Last year the place was close. In the European Games, I was second when the number one got a place. This spring has been a miserable mess. There were good things to do in Italy in April, but then when the next race came, where places were shared… You just have to get up from the swamp.
How big of a disappointment would it be if there is no place in the Olympics?
– It would be sad, but there’s nothing you can do but look in the mirror. If others are better, then nothing can be done about it.
At the European Championship in Lonato, Italy, the women’s trap will be held on Friday and Saturday next week.