Penny Smith

Penny Smith began shooting in 2009 after “falling into the sport” through her brother, who she considers her inspiration. Starting out at Victoria’s Noorat Gun Club, Penny quickly climbed the ranks to national level.

She experienced international success as a junior, winning trap silver at the 2013 Oceania Championships.

Competing as a senior, she won her first World Cup gold medal in Delhi in 2017 by outscoring London 2012 Olympic champion Jessica Rossi of Italy.

Missing selection to the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games fuelled Penny’s fighting spirit and she surged to success in 2019.

“Some things like that make you a better athlete and a better person,” she said.

In a breakthrough year, Penny won gold at the 2019 Lahti World Cup and in doing so secured Australia a quota spot for Tokyo. In the same year, she won mixed trap team bronze at the world championships with shooting partner Thomas Grice.

In 2020, Penny achieved an Australian selection trial clean-sweep when she won all four nomination events including the Commonwealth and national titles, defeating Rio 2016 gold medallist Catherine Skinner and Rio Olympian Laetisha Scanlan to top the leaderboard.

Penny saved her best performance for the final event, which she won with a world-class personal best 47 from 50 targets and earned herself a spot on the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Team.

Penny reached the women’s trap final at the Tokyo 2020 Games and eventually placed sixth. She paired up with Thomas Grice and also finished sixth in the mixed trap team event
Penny enjoyed a magnificent 2022 season winning a ISSF World Cup gold medal with James Willett in the mixed trap team event in Changwon, Korea and two gold medals when partnering Laetisha Scanlan and Catherine Skinner in the women’s trap team events in Lonato and in Cyprus.

She placed second in the ISSF Changwon World Cup women’s trap and third in ISSF Grand Prix in Granada.

Penny has continued her great form in 2023, winning the ISSF World Cup gold medal in Doha and third in the ISSF World Cup in Cyprus.

Early in 2024 she equalled the Australian ISSF (Olympic) Trap record with a perfect qualifying score of 125 targets out of 125 at the Yarra Valley Grand Prix at Melbourne Gun Club.

“It’s really good to shoot a 125/125 and I guess it’s something that you always dream to do and good that it’s a reality now,” Penny said.

After strong performances in Olympic nomination events in 2024, Penny topped the Shooting Australia leaderboard for selection nomination with a total of 735 points.

Growing up on the land, Penny was surrounded by horses. Her mother Kim was the groom to equestrian Olympian Andrew Hoy’s horses at the Los Angeles 1984 Olympic Games. When not training or competing, Penny said she can be found “riding my horses, hanging out on the farm”.