Russell Andrew Mark, (born 25 February 1964 in

Ballarat Ballarat ( ) () is a city in the Central Highlands of Victoria, Australia. At the 2021 census, Ballarat had a population of 111,973, making it the third-largest urban inland city in Australia and the third-largest city in Victoria. Within mo ...

, Victoria, Australia) is an

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

Olympic Champion This article includes lists of all Olympic medalists since 1896, organized by each Olympic sport or discipline, and also by Olympiad. Medalist with most medals by sport Summer Olympic sports Sports that will appear in the 2028 Summer Olympics ar ...

marksman and world-renowned clay target shooting coach specialising in the disciplines of Olympic Trap and American Trap. Mark is a former World and Olympic Record holder and held the world number one ranking on multiple occasions. He won the gold medal in the

Double Trap Double trap is a shotgun shooting sport, one of the ISSF shooting events. Participants use a shotgun to attempt to break a clay disk flung away from the shooter at high speed. The layout of double trap shooting is similar to that of trap shooti ...

event at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. He also won a silver medal at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. Mark competed at six Olympic Games: 1988 (Trap), 1992 (Trap), 1996 (Trap and Double Trap), 2000 (Trap and Double Trap), 2008 (Double Trap), 2012 (Double Trap). The only Australian Summer Olympian to compete in more Olympiads is

Andrew Hoy Andrew James Hoy (born 8 February 1959) is an Australian equestrian rider. He has won six Olympic medals: three gold, two silvers and one bronze. He has competed in eight Olympic games, from 1984 to 2020 with the exception of 2008, which is a ...

(seven). His win at the Atlanta 1996 Summer Olympics gave him the distinction of being the world's inaugural shotgun competitor to win an individual gold medal in all four of the major International Shooting Sports Federation (ISSF) titles; the World Cup, the World Cup Final, the World Championship and the Olympic Games. Uniquely after the Sydney

2000 Summer Olympics The 2000 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXVII Olympiad, officially branded as Sydney 2000, and also known as the Games of the New Millennium, were an international multi-sport event held from 15 September to 1 October ...

, he also has a complete set of silver medals from all four of the world's major championships. This is an honour he solely shares with the legendary American female clay target shooter and six time Olympic medalist, Kimberley Rhode. Mark is a dual World Individual Champion (1994 in Fagnano, Italy and 1997 in Lima, Peru) and also dual World Team Champion in 1998 (Double Trap at Barcelona, Spain with Michael Diamond and Adam Vella) and 1999 (Trap in Tampere, Finland with Michael Diamond and Glenn Kable). When Mark won the World Cup Trap Gold Medal in Los Angeles, USA (1991) he became the first-ever Australian to win an individual ISSF World Cup in any Shooting discipline. He also won World Cup gold medals in Lonato, Italy (1992);

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

, Germany (1994);

Lima Lima ( ; ), founded in 1535 as the Ciudad de los Reyes (, Spanish for "City of Biblical Magi, Kings"), is the capital and largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón River, Chillón, Rímac River, Rímac and Lurín Rive ...

, Peru (1999);

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

, Australia (2000); and

Perth Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...

, Australia (2003). At the

2006 Commonwealth Games The 2006 Commonwealth Games, officially the XVIII Commonwealth Games and commonly known as Melbourne 2006, were an International sport, international multi-sport event for members of the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth held in Melbourne ...

in Melbourne, Mark won a gold medal in men's Double Trap.

Personal life

Early years

Mark grew up on a semi-rural property on the outskirts of Ballarat in the suburb of Brown Hill. He played junior Australian rules football for the East Ballarat Football Club, cricket for the Brown Hill Cricket Club. He represented Ballarat in the annual junior country week cricket tournament in January 1979. Mark was also a member of the Buninyong Golf Club where his mother, Joan, was a multiple club champion. During his secondary school years he was a prolific athletics champion in the high jump event where he set several school records and represented at inter-school athletic carnivals from 1975 to 1981. He commenced competitive clay target shooting at the Sebastopol Clay Target Club, Ballarat in 1977. His father, Brian, was the Australian Marketing Manager for the American firearms company, Winchester, from 1975 to 1981. His eldest sibling, Geoffrey, won a National Clay Target Shooting Championship in 1983. Mark credits both his father and brother with positively influencing his early clay target shooting career.

Education

Russell Mark was educated in

, Victoria, at the Brown Hill Primary School (1969 – 1974) and Ballarat East High School (1975 – 1981). He was elected as the school captain in his final year. He completed a Degree of Business Studies (Property Valuation) at the

Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (abbreviated as RMIT University) is a public research university located in the city of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia., section 4(b) Established in 1887 by Francis Ormond, it is the seventh-o ...

(1982 – 1985).

Business

After graduating from RMIT in 1985, Mark started work as a cadet real estate valuer for the City of Essendon, a municipality in Melbourne. In 1989 he began employment for the City of Werribee as the municipality's assistant valuer and in 1990 he commenced working independently as a licensed valuer from his family's real estate business that was owned and operated by his father, Brian Mark. Mark was the National Ambassador and Master of Ceremonies for the telecommunications company, Telstra, at their State and National Australian Small Business Awards from 1997 to 2000. In early 1997 he left the valuing and real estate industry and became a full time professional clay target shooting competitor after accepting two lucrative contracts from the giant Italian firearms company, Beretta and the iconic American ammunition manufacturer, Winchester. In March, 1999 Mark opened a food, alcohol and gaming machine establishment operating under the name of "The Tigers Clubhouse" in Hoppers Crossing, Victoria. It is registered for commercial trading in the state of Victoria as a club. In 2012 he commenced a similar business, a licensed hotel, in Tarneit, Victoria trading under the identity of "Hotel 520". In October, 1999 Mark formed a coaching and commercial clay target shooting entertainment business that originally offered services under the corporate identity of "Russell Mark Shooting". In 2002 it was renamed to "Corporate Shooting Stars" and from 2013 the business has traded under the title of "Go Shooting Pty Ltd" in Victoria and Queensland. In 2023 he separated the coaching and corporate sectors of the business and then sold the corporate licence agreements in both States and now no longer owns or operates the commercial/entertainment division of the company. Mark has been a board member of several sporting organisations throughout his career, most notably the Australian Olympic Committee Athletes Commission (two terms), Shooting Australia (two terms), the Victorian Olympic Committee (two terms) and the Fosters Sports Foundation.

Political views

Mark had been a long-time supporter of the Liberal Party at both Federal and State levels. In 1996 he publicly advocated for Jeff Kennett, who was seeking endorsement to be elected for a second term as the Victorian State Premier. Also in 1996, the reigning Liberal Prime Minister, John Howard, introduced his National Firearms Legislation after thirty-five people lost their lives in a shocking shooting massacre at Port Arthur in Tasmania. Surprisingly the Prime Minister received some support from Mark who had only just won a gold medal in the sport of shooting at the Atlanta Olympic Games. Although Mark strenuously opposed Howard regarding his new restrictions that would ban ownership of semi-automatic shotguns and rimfire rifles, he did publicly state that it was his opinion that the sale of powerful semi-automatic centre-fire military style rifles, such as the AK-47 weapon that was used in the recent slaughter, should be restricted only to licensed firearm owners that could prove a genuine need to possess this type of gun such as government employed varmint eradication workers or certain rural farmers. Mark's view on this topic polarized himself with many "pro-gun" lobbyists. In March 2001 he sought Liberal Party pre-selection for the federal seat of Ballarat, which he achieved, but just two months prior to the election he withdrew his candidacy citing "irreconcilable differences" between himself and the constituency's retiring Liberal Party member, Michael Ronaldson. In November 2001, the Liberal-National Party alliance swept back into power, but gave up the seat of Ballarat to the Labour Party's Catherine King. This was the only federal electorate in Australia that was previously held by the reigning coalition that was lost to the opposition in the 2001 federal election. Mark now describes himself as a "swinging voter" and is no longer a financial donor or member of any political party.

Philanthropy

Since 1997 Russell Mark has been a supporter and public ambassador for the Pied Pipers charitable organisation that raises revenue annually for the Royal Melbourne Children Hospital's Good Friday Appeal. He regularly appeared on the Channel 7 television network's annual Good Friday telethon as their cheque presentation representative. He is also a supporter and donor to another Royal Melbourne Children's Hospital charity, Finnans Gift, in support of his friend and fellow Olympic Gold Medalist, Alisa Camplin, whose infant son passed away just ten days after his birth due to an undetected heart complication. Mark's two commercial businesses, The Tigers Clubhouse and Hotel 520, distribute approximately $250,000 annually to a wide range of sporting clubs and charities within the City of Wyndham through their community grants programs.

Other interests

Mark has a love of Australian Rules Football and is a strong supporter of the Victorian based National team, the Carlton Football Club. He also enjoys golf, snow skiing and mountain hiking. He owns two adjoining parcels of land that have frontage to the Darling River in western New South Wales, just north of the small town of Pooncarie, where he enjoys spending time fishing, hunting and trail bike riding.

Residence

Mark shares residency between Hoppers Crossing, Victoria and Surfers Paradise, Queensland.

Family

Spouse

Russell Mark married his high school girlfriend, Natalie Anne Cartledge, in 1991. The couple divorced in 1999. On March 17, 2004 he married the American born, triple Commonwealth Games gold medallist and dual Olympian,

Lauryn Mark Lauryn Annyn Mark (née Ogilvie, born April 15, 1980, in Los Gatos, California, United States) is an American Australian Olympic Women's Skeet shooter. She finished fourth in Women's Skeet in the 2004 Summer Olympics and won three gold med ...

(née Ogilvie) in a surprise wedding ceremony on a deserted beach at Hamilton Island, Queensland..

Parents

Brian William Mark (Born 17.11.1930 - Died 19.6.2009), Evelyn Joan Mark (Born 6.7.1931 - Died 11.4.2000)

Siblings

Geoffrey Ian Mark (Born 7.12.1954), David William Mark (Born 30.3.1956)

Children

Holly Anne Mark (Born 23.9.1998), Sierra Evelyn Mark (Born 23.6.2005) and Indiana Todd Mark (Born 29.1.2007).

Competition shooting career

Mark's career included an individual Olympic gold and silver medal, 2 individual World Championships (twice runner-up), 6 World Cup Championships and 2 World Team Championships as well as 39 Australian Clay Target Association 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 for consecutive hits. He had a streak 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 at Canberra of 859 consecutive hits. At the Geelong Clay Target Club in March, 1990 he hit 288 Double Rise targets in succession to create a new Australian Record that still stands at this time. In 1997, he won the men's Double Trap World Championship in Peru with a new

World Record A world record is usually the best global and most important performance that is ever recorded and officially verified in a specific skill, sport, or other kind of activity. The book ''Guinness World Records'' and other world records organizatio ...

. Mark held the ISSF world number one ranking in Men's Double Trap on more than fifteen occasions between July, 1994 and September, 2003. In 2006, Mark competed at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games where he won a gold medal with Craig Trembath in the Double Trap Pairs event. He participated in the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics, making the final and finishing 5th in Men's Double Trap. In 2010, he declared an intention to make the London 2012 Summer Olympics for his sixth and last appearance. On June 7, 2012, Mark was named in the Australian Olympic team. As well as six Olympic appearances he also competed at six Commonwealth Games (1990, 1994, 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014). Mark competed in the open individual ISSF World Championships on 22 consecutive 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. On August 26, 2014 Mark announced he would be retiring from international competition on September 14, 2014 at the conclusion of the ISSF World Championship which was conducted in Granada, Spain.

Coaching career

Russell Mark is a registered ISSF 'A' class licensed coach and is one of the world's most successful, influential and sought after clay target shooting instructors. He has trained competitors, national teams and coaches in a multitude of countries that include Great Britain, USA, Qatar, India, Thailand, Japan, Brunei, Singapore, Philippines, South Korea, Trinidad and Tobago, Slovenia, Montenegro, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Kuwait and Italy. In October, 1996 Mark received world-wide media attention for taking a contract to coach Prince Sufri Bolkiah from Brunei, at his personal shooting range for two weeks. In 2004, Mark served as part of the administrative support team at the Athens

2004 Summer Olympics The 2004 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad (), and officially branded as Athens 2004 (), were an international multi-sport event held from 13 to 29 August 2004 in Athens, Greece. The Games saw 10,625 athletes ...

working for the Australian Olympic Committee as an Athlete's Liaison Officer as well as controversially taking the position as the personal coach to the Indian marksman

Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore (born 29 January 1970) 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 ...

who went on to become India's first ever individual Olympic medalist by winning a silver medal. In February, 2019 Mark and his wife, Lauryn, created the highly successful online coaching YouTube channel "Go Shooting Shotgun Coaching Videos" that now display over one hundred tutorials. In April, 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 at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. Mark started employment with the Qatar Olympic Committee on July 5, 2023 as the coach of the National Trap Shooting Team for the remainder of the 2023 international season. On October 30, 2023 Mark triumphantly gained Qatar entry into the Men's Trap event at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games after they won a starting quota place at the 15th Asian Shooting Championships held at Changwon, South Korea which was the last major title of the year. The following day he sensationally announced he was retiring immediately as the Qatar National Coach. In February 2024, Mark was selected as an inaugural board member of the newly formed ISSF Coaching Academy in Munich, Germany. On March 6, 2024, Shooting Australia announced that Mark would become the consultant Trap coach of the Olympic Shotgun Squad for the next four months and would prepare them for the forthcoming 2024 Olympics in July. Mark achieved immediate international success with the Australian Team when they won the 2024 World Cup at Baku, Azerbaijan in the Men's Trap competition therefore gaining his athlete entry into the 2024 Olympic Games. In doing so he became the first coach in the history of the International Shooting Sports Federation to be involved in qualifying three athletes from three different countries for participation into the Olympic Games in the one single Olympiad; India in 2022, Qatar in 2023 and finally Australia in 2024. Mark announced he would not be attending the 2024 Olympic Games with the Australian Shooting Team as he had made a commitment to work as a media commentator for the Australian Television Network, Channel 9, but on July 14, 2024 News Corp Australia published articles announcing that for the week prior to the 2024 Olympics commencing, Mark was employed to train the Indian Men's Trap team at a shooting range on the outskirts of Paris. Mark, who received some criticism for again coaching foreign competitors, justified this appointment by stating that he worked for the Australian Team was "gratis" as he did not charge for his services. In February 2025, Mark was employed by the Thailand Olympic Committee to organise and oversee three week long international training camps, the first of which was conducted in Bangkok at the range of the Thailand Trap and Skeet Association. In March 2025, Mark and his wife Lauryn, commenced employment with the International Shooting Sports Federation as their technical shotgun examiners to assist aspiring trainers gain their internationally accredited coaching licence.

Media career

Mark worked for the Melbourne radio station, 3AW as a co-host on their weekend sports program from 1997 to 2002. From 2003 until 2016 he was employed by ABC Radio in Melbourne on the Red Symons mid-week breakfast program as a sports presenter. From 2001 until 2006 he worked for Channel 7, an Australian television network, on their national Sunday morning sports program, Sportsworld, as a co-host. Channel 9 employed Mark as a television commentator at the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Malaysia. He again took the role as a commentator for the Channel 7 network at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Summer Olympics, 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games and at the 2020 (2021) Tokyo Summer Olympics. He has been employed by Channel 9 to commentate the Shooting events at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. Russell Mark wrote a monthly coaching and advice article for Australia's largest shooting sports publication, Australian Shooter, from 1998 until he announced his retirement in December 2024.

Honours

Mark has been a Global Ambassador for the world's leading firearm manufacturer,

Beretta Fabbrica d'Armi Pietro Beretta (; "Pietro Beretta Weapons Factory") is a privately held Italian firearms manufacturing company operating in several countries. Its firearms are used worldwide for various civilian, law enforcement, and military p ...

Italy, since 1986. His home shooting range was the Werribee-Victorian Clay Target Club. Mark was made a life member of the club in 1996. He is also a life member of the Geelong Clay Target Club and the Melbourne Cricket Club Clay Target Section, a club where he was elected as the inaugural chairman in 2008. He has been an ambassador to the Australian Football League team, Carlton, since 1997 and the number one ticket holder for the Victorian Football League club, Werribee, since 1993. In 1997, Mark was honoured with the

Order of Australia The Order of Australia is an Australian honours and awards system, Australian honour that recognises Australian citizens and other persons for outstanding achievement and service. It was established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Monarch ...

Medal for services to sport and the

Australian Sports Medal The Australian Sports Medal is an award given to recognise achievements in Australian sport to commemorate Australian participation in major sporting events. Original recipients of the award included competitors, coaches, sports scientists, off ...

in June 2000. In August 2007, in Munich, Germany the International Shooting Sports Federation inducted him as the greatest Double Trap competitor 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). In March 2009, at 45 years of age, Mark was admitted into the Australian Clay Target Association's Hall of Fame as its youngest member at the time. In 2019, Mark was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame. He is the second shotgun shooter so honoured. He was preceded by Donald Macintosh who titled at the Paris 1900 Summer Olympics. The Australian Clay Target Association made Russell Mark a life member in March 2024.

References

External links