His father, António Barros, was a shooter and traveled around Portugal competing in national competitions. Ultimately, he influenced his daughter, Inês, to follow his path, which is to pick up a gun and break plates. Something he wasn’t able to do at a competitive level until the age of 14, the age at which he could get a hunting license and then start playing sports. “I was one month old when I traveled to the Azores, where my father was going to undergo a test. I think that was the beginning of everything,” Inês de Barros, who became European champion in gun shooting on Sunday, told DN. (Olympic trap/pit).
The young shooter, born in Penafiel, won an unprecedented Olympic spot for the Portuguese shooting in Paris 2024: “Representing Portugal at the Olympic Games was more than a dream, it was a goal since I started shooting and competing at the age of 14, and now that I have achieved that at such a young age, I am a bit lost. I think I still haven’t really understood what I have done. Even more than being European champion, knowing that I have qualified for the Olympic Games is something bigger than European gold.’
After all, she is only 22 years old and has achieved what no other athlete has achieved in 111 years: presence at the Olympic Games, a race that will take place in Paris between July 26 and August 11, 2024.
He is part of the Paris 2024 Olympic Hopes project and has made no secret of his desire to win a medal at the next Olympic Games, but he is aware that to achieve this he will have to “work harder”. And there is a reference to take into account. Shooting was a pioneer in Portuguese participation (in Stockholm 1912) and Armando Marques was a silver medalist in the Olympic pit, in Montreal 1976. Since then, the shot has been looking for a second podium.
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Inês de Barros (@inesdebarros_atleta)
Inês echoed The Portuguese at the European Championships in Osijek, Croatia, and is still on cloud nine but hopes to return to a more rational side once he returns to Porto on Thursday. It is necessary to quickly draw up a plan for Paris 2024 together with the coach, her father António Barros and the national coach, because there are still nine months left until the start of the Games and she has to balance that with her studies.
In this case it may be necessary to include the integrated master’s degree in veterinary medicine stand-by. There are two fixed training sessions per week, with a minimum of two planks (25 planks each). Before the tests, he intensifies his sessions, even if this means missing classes and exams at the university, as happened in the summer of 2022 during the Mediterranean Games. The Olympic Games will demand much more, Inês knows this and promises to commit himself like never before.
European gold at the age of 22
He represents the Tâmega Valley Hunters Club and dreams of a career in shooting sports, a sport with Olympic tradition in Portugal. In 2021 she was a silver medalist in the Olympic pit discipline at the World Junior Championships and in 2022 she was 5th at the World Hunting Rifle Shooting Championship and a silver medalist at the Mediterranean Games. The best was saved for this year, with gold at the European Championships.
In the case of shooting, the one who wins the quota is the one who goes, unless he or she has to fail due to force majeure. Therefore, Inês de Barros will make history as the first woman to represent Portugal in shooting. An unprecedented achievement, which she hopes to appreciate: ‘It means that we, women, are also there, and that we still have a chance to fill the other vacancy. I believe in that and I think this will improve and improve a lot. the image of shooting as a man’s sport.”
Inês took family sports to a higher level. Besides his father, he has two sisters – Carina and Helena – who are also practitioners and even his mother Olinda tells him that if he were a boy, he would not have the same interest. His paternal grandfather, José Barros Ferreira, took up shooting because of his love of hunting.
It may seem like a paradox because hunting involves killing an animal and the young European champion hunts and is pursuing a master’s degree in veterinary medicine, but she defends ethical and regulated hunting that helps preserve the species and nature and the animal control of wild animals. and biodiversity in the region. That’s what he believes.
On Sunday in Osijek, Croatia, after two years of the Covid-19 pandemic with little practice, the shooter won gold and even overcame the lack of money – the Olympic Hopes project was suspended for months due to a lack of funding from the Olympic Committee . of Portugal, as a result of the fall of the government and the late approval of the state budget for 2023. The Portuguese reached the group of six finalists in first place, with 118 dishes in the five qualifying series and in the final she was again the most accurate – got 43 correct (out of 50 dishes), surpassing Italy’s Silvana Stanco (2nd) and Spain’s Fátima Galvez, Olympic champion in Tokyo 2020 in the mixed event (3rd).
She dreams of making a career in shooting, one of the 17 disciplines guaranteed to be present at Paris 2024. Last year she was Bronze at the European Shooting Championship and Silver on the World Podium in Baku, in addition to 5th place at the World Shooting Championships . Shooting championship with hunting weapons and a silver medal at the Mediterranean Games, which is why the Head of the Olympic Mission, Marco Alves, has named her one of the five names in the new national Olympic vacancy, together with Diogo Ribeiro (swimming), António Morgado ( cycling) and José Saraiva Mendes (sailing).
And anyone who expects to hear her say what the most difficult thing is to hit a moving target will be amazed: “Shooting at a stationary target would be boring for me, I think I would be easily distracted. So it is a challenge and requires concentration. “
Source: DN
