Michael Diamond (sport shooter)

His father, Con, managed a gun club and was a sporting shooter himself and introduced Michael to the sport at the age of eight.[2]

Mastering the shotgun, Diamond succeeded in winning the Olympic gold medal for trap consecutively in Atlanta in 1996 and Sydney in 2000,[3] becoming the second men's trap shooter to have done so. He held the world record in double trap, and held the final world record in trap between 2007 and 2008. Diamond is of Greek heritage. In 1997, he changed his surname from Diamantopoulos to Diamond.

Diamond won the trap event at the 2007 World Shotgun Championships. He was selected to compete in his sixth Olympic Games in London .[4] At the end of the qualification period, he was leading with an Olympic record of 125/125, but ended up finishing fourth overall, losing to Fehaid Aldeehani of Kuwait in a bronze Medal shoot-out.

In 2016, Diamond was charged with firearms offences and drink driving following an alleged domestic dispute involving his brother.[5] Due to the charges, which resulted in an automatic suspension of his firearms licence under Australian law, Diamond was ruled ineligible for nomination for the 2016 Rio Olympic games by the Australian Olympic Committee.[6] A court later quashed these convictions on appeal, questioning the legality of the police search and rejected claims by the prosecution that the firearms were not kept safe. [7]

Born in Goulburn, New South Wales, Diamond married Cathy and together they had three daughters.[2]