Sport is full of ironies.  Sniggers and gasps and raised eyebrows.  Little quirks that make you ask ‘what are the chances?’ 

Colin Montgomerie is possibly Europe’s greatest golfer in a generation, yet he had never won a major.  Andy Murray has been in the tennis playing form of his life, the stage was set for him to take on and conquer Wimbledon, and he had to pull out the day before it started.  Gavin Hastings, Scotland’s record points scorer, missed possibly the easiest kick of his career, against England in 1991, which could have taken Scotland to the World Cup final.

These are all cruel ironies.  But there are some delightful ones too.  Take the example of Susan Jackson, the subject of Champions in their Field for July.  Her entire life is about targets, both setting them and achieving them.  Whether it is to become a prominent force in the business world, raising a young family, or winning a Commonwealth gold medal, she has succeeded in hitting those targets.

The irony?  Susan’s life isn’t only dominated by metaphorical targets.  It is also punctuated by real ones too.  And, ironically, she strives to punctuate those same targets – with bullets.

Because this chartered accountant is also one of the best rifle shooters around.  Targets are what she lives for.  She has a 3,2,1 of Commonwealth medals, winning bronze, silver and gold in 1998, 2002 and 2006 respectively.  She is a Commonwealth Shooting Federation gold medallist, and is a multiple Scottish champion across several disciplines. 

To avoid a cliché, we won’t say discipline is Susan’s middle name.  But it should be.  Balancing a burgeoning sporting career alongside the demands of the world of corporate finance, where she excelled as an assistant director with money magnates Deloitte, is a task that requires serious discipline, effort and commitment.  But, then again, she has been doing it all her life, as she told In The Winning Zone from the comfort of her Edinburgh home.  Sounds like she’s been having a Mars a day for quite some time…

“There was always a time when I would focus on work more than shooting, or vice-versa, and I always knew which one it had to be.  For example in 1997 I was supposed to sit my final exams for my CA qualification, but it coincided with going to Malaysia for the Commonwealth Championships, so I had to make a decision.  Do I go to Malaysia or stay at home and sit my exams?   I weighed it up and thought ‘Well this is a trial run for the Commonwealth Games, and I want to go to them.’ So I deferred my exams.”

A tough decision, but it was one from which she ultimately benefited.  She made the games and won a bronze medal, and it set her on the way to greater things.  “I passed my exams and then took up training again for the World Championships.  Each year there has been a question over which way the pendulum was going to go.  After the 2002 Games I threw myself into work and stopped travelling and going to training camps.  My shooting took a back seat while my career was stepping up.  I was working all over the UK and the world.  There was no time for shooting.”


Though of course, there are other important things in life beyond work and sport, and unfortunately in many instances these had to take a back seat for Susan. 

“There were periods of time when I was never at home and my husband had to be very patient.  There were times when I was away all week with work in Birmingham or London or Manchester.  Then at the weekend I would be coming home, packing a bag and going off shooting straight away.  And that put a lot of stress on my family life.”
 
This was the routine for Susan for almost ten years.  It was shooting, work, shooting, work.  But, being a business woman, she applied some of her boardroom skills to her sporting career.  She knew she had to take a calculated risk, and make a tough decision.
Having already taken Commonwealth bronze and silver, her next target was obvious as the 2006 Melbourne Games loomed.

“It wasn’t a quick decision.  I could see I had three choices.  Quit shooting and concentrate on my career, juggle both of them, or take a break from my career and concentrate on the shooting.  I quickly came to the conclusion that the middle one was not an option.  It was too stressful.  I had already done it before.  I had no desire to go to the 2006 games and just be a participant.  I wanted to win a gold medal, and then some.”

Susan took on the warrior mindset.  She wanted to win.  She needed to win – she had done everything else.  Unfortunately, she knew she had to make the ultimate sacrifice to achieve the biggest target of them all.  So that was it.  There was no choice but to take a step back from her career, all her hard work, and focus entirely on her shooting.  She took a one year sabbatical.  It was an all or nothing gamble for the evasive gold.

But work wasn’t the only obstacle in her way however.  Though Susan was fully committed to her shooting, she was in the minority, because shooting is unfortunately a minority sport.  Coaching was minimal and if she wanted to be ready to compete with the best, much of the work had to be done on her own.

“Between 1998 and 2004 I did get frustrated that I didn’t see a coach as much as I would have wanted to, but I had to be pragmatic and realistic about it.  I knew there was no point of that getting in the way of what I wanted to do.

“I know the score in the world of shooting, and it is the sort of sport that you can do a lot of it on your own anyway. I spent a lot of time on my own on my year out.  I would discuss a training plan with my coach on a weekly basis, but he didn’t need to be there to deliver coaching.  It’s not an active sport as such that you need your coach there all the time.”

And it paid off.  She got to train more.  She had more time to work on her weaknesses.  Her alone time helped her focus psychologically.  The whole time she received expert and tailored support and advice from the Scottish Institute of Sport.  And she got her gold.  A happy ending.

The moral of the story?  Well, there are many; too many, almost, to list; all from the example of one person, in one sport:  To get what you want, you must be willing to make some tough sacrifices along the way.  You may jeopardise other things that you care about in order to achieve your goals.  The only person you can rely on to take you to the top is yourself.  And if you aim high enough, you will achieve it.  Susan Jackson knows this – she has done it all.

“My own goal was always to do my best, because if you know what your best is and you can pitch it against what the standard has been historically, then you know whether you are going to be in with a shout or not.  I knew that my best would put me in with a shout of a gold medal.  So that’s what it all came down to.  Doing your absolute best in competition.”

Susan now has her career back on track and is facing a new challenge, and it could be her greatest one yet.  This isn’t a one year commitment or a four year cycle to prepare for the next big competition.  It isn’t taking responsibility of a business deal worth millions of pounds.  It is all that, and then some, as Susan likes to say.

Matthew Jackson was born on 27 September 2006.  Teething, chickenpox and dirty nappies are the order of the day now.  But she will take it in her stride.  After all, if you can compete with the best in the sporting and corporate worlds, looking after a little bundle of joy should be easier than shooting fish in a barrel…

RO

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