The remarkable story of Victorian regional town Camperdown at the Paris Olympics

Trap shooter Penny Smith had to avoid the distractions of a bizarre footwear controversy to join road racer Grace Brown as a Camperdown medallist in Paris. This is a town that produces Olympic stars.

The tiny Victorian country town of Camperdown boasts 3354 people, three pubs and as of this week two Paris Olympic medals.

Trap shooter Penny Smith should know _ she works behind the bar at one of those hotels and has a Paris bronze medal to go along with Grace Brown’s road racing gold.

Smith isn’t some big city transplant dining out on tenuous country roots.

If she isn’t working at the Commercial Hotel, the 29-year-old is honing her shotgun craft or selling clothes in nearby Warrnambool she is helping her parents milk 140 cows on their dairy farm.

She still lives at home with parents Michael and Kim.

They didn’t get over to Paris for her event.

Because let’s face it, the cows won’t milk themselves.

Mother Kim’s Olympic connection goes back 40 years as the groom for Olympic equestrian rider Andrew Hoy when he rode in the 1984 Olympics.

Penny Smith on her way to Olympic bronze. Picture: Charles McQuillan/Getty Images

Kim then took his horses back to England for three months to quarantine with Princess Anne and her first husband Captain Mark Phillips before Hoy rode them in another competition.

Camperdown, 190km west of Melbourne, is proud of its history with Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley, Olympic rider Bill Roycroft and electric pacemaker pioneer Geoffrey Wickham among its famous faces.

Technically the Smiths’ farm is in Bookaar, just north of Camperdown, but the shotgun star knows the Camperdown community will be preparing for some long nights of celebration.

“It’s absolutely phenomenal. The support back home has been wonderful,” Smith said.

“The town would be absolutely buzzing. And I know that my parents and my partner, they’re all looking forward to having me home so we can celebrate together.

Road racer Brown and Smith grew up as schoolmates as Brown’s parents worked as doctors in Camperdown for 20 years before moving to Arnhem Land, then Roma, Queensland.

Gold to Adriana Ruano Oliva of Team Guatemala (C), silver medallist Silvana Maria Stanco of Italy (L) and bronze medallist Penny Smith of Team Australia Picture: Charles McQuillan/Getty Images

Kim Brown said on Thursday of the region: “We are in the heart of the dairy industry. It’s very pretty, it’s got a clock tower …. It was Penny’s wish that we stayed at home because we always believe it is Penny’s thing but when you have got farmland, someone has got to be at home to look after it.”

Smith’s bronze medal was all the more glorious given the distractions she withstood.

She had to endure a “commotion” just as she started the shoot-off to get into the final as a septic tank was being emptied in the background.

Jess Fox won the women’s individual time trial. Picture: Tim de Waele/Getty Images

Organisers had already told her she could not wear her trademark blue steel cap Timberland boots because they were not sporting wear.

In a sport where the millimetres matter, those boots keep her grounded with strong ankle protection and allow the left-hander to swing her Perazzi gun tracking a target with military precision.

It could have destroyed her medal hopes.

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And yet after multiple trips to the Chateauroux shops she found a pair of Nike high tops which provided the stability that “grounds” her, swapping out the laces for green replacements to fit in with the Australian dress code.

“Some people wear sneakers. I wear my boots. I’m a big believer in good support, which is your grounding. It helps you shoot. That’s who I am. That’s my identity, Penny Smith who wears the Timberland boots. We did make a few trips to a few different sports stores but we found a pair of shoes. Initially it was a bit of a shock but we had to regroup really quickly and get the answers we needed to be able to sort the issue out.”