Michael Diamond

This article is about the Australian sport shooter; for the American rapper, see Beastie Boys .

Michael Constantine Diamond (born May 20, 1972 in Sydney ) is an Australian sports shooter. The specialist in trap and double trap has twice been Olympic champion.

Michael Diamond was runner-up in the Trap world championship in 1991, behind the Italian Marco Venturini . In 1992 in Barcelona Diamond first took part in the Olympic Games, but only finished eleventh in the semifinals. In 1995 Diamond was again vice world champion, this time the Italian Giovanni Pellielo defeated him . At the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta Pellielo missed the final, while Diamond reached the final of the top six as the leader, where he was the only one to hit all the targets and become Olympic champion.

In 1998 Diamond became world champion in double trap, the world record that was set is still in force ten years later. Also in 1998, Diamond won the Commonwealth Games in trap , and in 1999 he won his first world title in trap. In his hometown of Sydney at the 2000 Olympic Games , he had to deal with media attention that was rather unusual for sport shooters - as an Olympic champion and reigning world champion, he was considered one of the hosts' clearest gold contenders. Diamond withstood the pressure and defended his Olympic victory with great superiority.

In 2001 Diamond was again world champion, the following year he took second place. At the Commonwealth Games 2002 he won the Trap and together with Adam Vella in the Trap team, with Russell Mark he won silver in the team classification in the double trap . At the 2004 Olympic Games , Diamond could not qualify as eighth for the final of the six best shooters. It wasn't until 2006 that he was able to win another important trap competition at the Commonwealth Games . In 2007 Diamond became world champion in trap for the third time, setting a world record that was exceeded by Karsten Bindrich in the summer of 2008 . At the 2008 Olympic Games , Diamond reached the final of the last six shooters, but narrowly missed a medal in fourth.

literature

• Volker Kluge : Summer Olympic Games. Chronicle IV. Seoul 1988 - Atlanta 1996. Sportverlag Berlin, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-328-00830-6 .

Web links

• Portrait on Results.beijing ( Memento from March 16, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
• World championships in trap