His win at the Atlanta 1996 Summer Olympics gave him the distinction of being the inaugural shotgun shooter of the sport to win all four of the world major individual titles: World Cup, World Cup Final, World Championship and Olympic Games. Uniquely after the Sydney 2000 Summer Olympics he also has a set of silver medals in all four major titles, an honour he shares with the American clay target shooter Kimberley Rhode.
Mark is a dual World Individual Champion (1994, 1997) and dual World Team Champion (1998 and 1999). He won an individual World Cup gold medal in Los Angeles, US (1991); this was the first-ever World Cup individual gold medal by an Australian in any Shooting discipline. He also won gold medals in Lonato, Italy (1992); Munich, Germany (1994); Lima, Peru (1999); Sydney, Australia (2000); and Perth, Australia (2003). At the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, Mark won a gold medal in men's Double Trap.
In August 2007, in Munich, Germany, the International Shooting Sports Federation inducted him into its Hall of Fame as the greatest double trap shooter of all time. This was an accolade he shared with fellow shotgun shooters Luciano Giovannetti (men's trap, from Italy), Kimberly Rhode (women's double trap and skeet, from USA), and Susan Nattrass (women's trap, from Canada).
Personal life
Mark was educated in Ballarat, Victoria, at the Brown Hill Primary School (1969 – 1974)[1] and Ballarat East High School (1975 – 1981).[2] He completed a Diploma of Business Studies at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (1982 – 1985).[2]
Family
Mark married fellow champion shooter and triple Commonwealth Games gold medallist and dual Olympian Lauryn Mark on 17 March 2004.[citation needed]. He has three children. Holly Anne Mark, Sierra Evelyn Mark and Indiana Todd Mark.
Competition shooting career
Mark's career includes an individual Olympic Gold and silver medal, 2 individual World Championships, 6 World Cup Championships and 2 World Team Championships as well as 39 Australian National Open Championships (current record holder). His first Open Australian Championship came in 1980 as a sixteen-year-old junior competitor in Perth where he also set a new Australian Open Record. He had a run of twenty consecutive years from 1988 to 2007 where he won at least one Australian Title each year.
In September 1992 at a major tournament in Tamworth, NSW, Mark became the first Australian to hit more than one thousand targets in succession. He finished the competition with 1177 hits in a row breaking his own Australian record set in January 1992 in Canberra of 859 consecutive hits.
In 1997, he won the men's Double Trap World Championship in Peru with a new World Record.
In 2004, Mark served as part of the administrative support team at the Athens 2004 Summer Olympics working for the Australian Olympic Committee as an Athlete's Liaison Officer.[3] Also during 2004 he controversially took the position as the personal coach to the Indian marksman Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore who went on to become India's first ever individual Olympic medalist at the Athens Olympics by winning a silver medal.
In 2006, Mark competed at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games where he won a gold medal. He participated in the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics where he finished 5th in Olympic men's double trap. In 2010, he declared an intention to make the London 2012 Summer Olympics his sixth appearance. On 7 June 2012, Mark was named in the Olympic team.[4]
He has competed at six Commonwealth Games (1990, 1994, 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014). He competed in the open individual ISSF World Championships on 22 occasions: (1986, 1987, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014). This is a record for any Australian shotgun athlete.
Mark retired from international competition after the 2014 ISSF World Championship in Spain.
Coaching career
Mark is a world-renowned professional clay target shooting coach. In 2022 he agreed on a one-year contract to be employed by the Sports Authority of India as the foreign trap shooting coach for the Indian Shotgun Team. He resigned from this position on May 28, 2023, after successfully qualifying the Indian Trap Team for participation in the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.
On July 5, 2023, he started with the Qatar Olympic Committee as the coach of the National Trap Shooting Team for the remainder of the 2023 season. On October 30th, 2023 Mark successfully gained Qatar entry into the Men's Trap event at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games after they won a starting place at the 15th Asian Shooting Championships held at Changwon, South Korea. The following day on October 31st he sensationally announced he was retiring as the Qatar National Coach.
On March 6th, 2024, Shooting Australia announced that Mark would become the Trap coach of the Olympic Shotgun Team and would prepare them for the forthcoming 2024 Olympics in July, but he has stated he will not be attending the Games with the Australian Team as he had made a proior commitment to work as a media commentator for an Australian Television Network.
Marks' home shooting range was the Werribee-Victorian Clay Target Club. He was made a life member of the club in 1996.
In March 2009, Mark was inducted into the Australian Clay Target Association's Hall of Fame as the youngest member at the time. In March 2024 he was made a life member of the association.
Mark has been a Global Ambassador for the world's leading firearm manufacturer, Beretta Italy, since 1986.
Colonel Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore,, is an Indian politician, Olympic medallist in shooting and retired colonel in the Indian Army. He is serving as a cabinet minister at the Industry & Commerce, Youth Affairs & Sports Department in the Government of Rajasthan since December 2023. Rathore was a Member of Parliament in the Lok Sabha from Jaipur Rural seat since 2014 till 2023.
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