Willett’s great Tokyo warm-ups

The 25-year-old Rio Olympian also won a small competition at the Gold Coast Clay Target Club the same weekend.

“This was a nice warm up event for the Qld state titles,” he told the Yarrawonga Chronicle last week.

The two events were great warm-ups to next month’s Olympic Games in Tokyo.

“The weather was perfect over the weekend which made for good conditions for the competition. It was a very close final in the end with only a one target advantage over Thomas Grice (from Sydney) for me to take the win.”

Willett said everything is now on track for the preparations for the Olympics. “Under 50 days now until the opening ceremony so everything is starting to take shape and final plans are being put together,” he said.

“We had an Olympic Team (shooting) meeting yesterday where we went through a lot of information about how the games will be run under a COVID Safe environment. It’s looking like we will be getting tested a lot!”

Willett has been described as the “the next big thing” in the sport of shooting in Australia since Olympic champion Michael Diamond and is a big chance of bringing home a medal at the Tokyo Olympic Games according to his coach and mentor Russell Mark OAM.

The Olympic gold medallist is all praise for Willett who has been focusing on giving himself the best chance to realise his gold medal dream at his custom-built shooting range on the family farm in Mulwala since the postponement of the Tokyo Games until July this year.

Mark said that Willett is a good chance to make the final six competitors in both his single trap discipline and also the mixed doubles trap with Laetisha Scanlan.

“I rate him the best prospect in the sport since Michael Diamond OAM (dual Olympic medallist) and is on his way to maybe being the best ever in Australia,” Mark said.

No Australian male shooter has won an Olympic shooting gold medal since Diamond collected his second trap title in Sydney 20 years ago, but Willett can already be mentioned in the same sentence.

He shot a perfect men’s qualifying score of 125 out of 125 at a World Cup meeting in Mexico in 2019. Diamond is the only other Australian to achieve that feat.

“He did well in his first Olympics and has gone on from there winning world championship events,” Mark said.

Champion Mulwala shooter James Willett won the QLD State Men’s Trap Competition at Brisbane Gun Club the weekend before last keeping him on target for next month’s Tokyo Olympics.