One day Amber Hill may be one of Great Britain’s big Olympic stars. She is a brilliant skeet shooter and only 18 years old but her youth was against her in the Olympic skeet shooting contest as she was beaten in the final round by a group of experienced rivals and finished sixth.
“There’s definitely a lot of pride,” she said. “I was disappointed to not win or get into the gold medal [shootoff] but what a great opportunity. No one can put into words how electric the atmosphere would be.”
Hill, from Berkshire, came into her first Olympic Games as a promising young talent. Last year she secured a gold medal at the European Games in Baku, making her the youngest winner in the event’s history, and arrived in Rio as one of the top new faces in a sport dominated by older performers. She started shooting at 10 years old and made the British national team at the age of 12.
In 2015, the BBC named her the young sports personality of the year. There is little doubt she is going to become one of the sport’s big stars. When asked if she will be a gold-medal contender in Tokyo in 2020 she smiled and shrugged. “I think that takes a lot more hard work and experience to get but I think there are a lot of good things to come for me.”
She placed fifth in qualifying on Friday, finishing barely ahead of the American Morgan Craft and Russia’s Albina Shakirova for the final spot in the finals. The fact she had made it this far just days before her 19th birthday was momentous. A fact the announcer at the shooting range pointed out to the pro-Italian crowd.
Hill shot well in her first three rounds, missing one each time, though those misses proved critical. By the end of 12 targets she had fallen to last place well behind the Italians Diana Bacosi, the Olympic champion, and the silver medallist, Chiara Cainero. She fell just one hit short of the shootoff between America’s Kim Rhode and China’s Meng Wei to determine the bronze.
Hill made a comeback in the final round, hitting every shot but it was too late. “I love that I have these two sides to my personality,” she said, laughing that at one moment she is an elite athlete with a laser focus and at another “a normal 18-year-old”.
Then she looked behind her at the empty range, toward the distant Rio hills and laughed again. “I think sometimes you have to pinch yourself. It’s been incredible,” she said of her day at the Olympics. “Nothing can compare to the experience.”
