Gold medal hope Natalie Smith’s incredible journey to Rio

NATALIE Smith spent eight years as a theatre nurse and those experiences have served her well on her new journey as one of Australia’s most inspiring sportswomen.

NATALIE Smith spent eight years as a theatre nurse and there is a surgical precision as she gathers her cutting-edge instruments together and begins her meticulous preparation for Operation Rio.

A steady hand and a calm temperament were the prerequisites for dealing with life and death situations every day in a busy hospital and they have served her well on her new journey as one of Australia’s most inspiring sportswomen.

As her beaming son Daniel, one month shy of his second birthday, totters around behind her giving onlookers high-fives, Natalie takes her precision German instruments and checks and rechecks her calibrations and calculations.

She dons her gloves, coat and cap and with the dexterity of a neurosurgeon begins making tiny incisions on a target, the size of a pinhead, 10 metres away.

Her hand is steady and her aim is true. On her best day she can shoot 60 bullets and hit the minuscule bullseye 60 times.

As her husband Stuart unloads more boxes of ammunition, Natalie, one of Australia’s gold medal favourites for this year’s Paralympics, explains that she only came to shooting by accident. A life-changing one.

She had always been an active sportswoman, riding horses and wakeboarding on the Murray River where Stuart’s family had a house at Echuca.

She worked at Melbourne’s Northern Hospital at Epping until 2009 when she slipped on some rocks while hiking near Alice Springs and broke her neck and back.

She went back to hospital, but this time as a spinal care patient, spending four months recovering from the damage and learning to adjust to life in a wheelchair.

Natalie Smith is ready to bring back gold from Rio. Picture: Jono Searle.

“The accident caused a completely different way of living for me,’’ she said. “The biggest change is that loss of independence. You can’t do all the things you could before.

“I was a theatre nurse but it’s a bit hard to do that job in a wheelchair.’’

Through Queensland’s Sporting Wheelies, Natalie found talents she did not know she had. She has been able to inspire many others around the world with her cool head and steely nerves and the ability to adapt to life-changing situations.

“Shooting is certainly a sport where you can’t crack under pressure,’’ she said.

As she adjusts the sights on one of her $6000 Anshutz rifles, she says competing against other Paralympians from so many different countries provides a valuable support network.

“I’ve been able to learn from so many people from vastly different backgrounds just how they overcome their disabilities,’’ she said.

“Sport for people in wheelchairs takes you out of your comfort zone but at the same time it teaches you how to deal with life’s difficulties.

“And it has given me the chance to represent Australia on the world stage.’’

Natalie Smith with son Daniel. Picture: Jono Searle.

After moving to Queensland in 2010 because of the sporting opportunities offered in Brisbane she and Stuart attended a “come and try’’ shooting day at the Belmont range.

Natalie’s grandfather Norman Lutz was selected as a rifle shooter for the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, only to be sidelined by a heart attack.

Natalie had no real interest in the sport until she squeezed a trigger for the first time and a bullseye, somewhere in the distance, blew apart.

The 40-year-old mum has been at Belmont almost every day since with Stuart preparing her rifles for her and Daniel leading the cheer squad.

Although she has little in the way of sponsorship, Natalie chews up about $300 in .177 and .22 calibre ammunition every week as she strives to maintain her place on top of the world.

A year after she first picked up a rifle she won gold and broke an Australian record with the air rifle when competing at the US Army base of Fort Benning. She took bronze in the women’s 10m air rifle at the London Paralympics.

Her career was interrupted by the birth of Daniel, the baby she thought she could never have.

He was born by emergency caesarean at Mater Mothers’ Hospital, and she says he is her lucky charm, leaving their one-eyed French bulldog at home to travel with her and Stuart last year for competitions in Poland, Germany, the USA, Croatia and the Czech Republic.

In January Natalie came home from a Paralympic qualifier in Dubai with gold, silver and bronze. She leaves next week to compete in Thailand, followed by events in Poland and Germany. Her target is gold in Rio and as she looks at life down a steel barrel she can hardly miss.

â–  SOME of Australia’s leading Paralympians will take part in the Weekend Sunrise Parathon fundraiser in Sydney’s Martin Place (Saturday) which Channel 7 will televise between 6-11am (Qld time).

Originally published as Gold medal hope Natalie Smith’s incredible journey to Rio