Jess Burgess

The Olympic Skeet hotshot on navigating the fine balance between the bustle of a City career and the pursuit of competitive shooting

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GROWING up in the suburbs, country life was relatively unknown to me until I was in secondary school. My father stumbled across it but found it a wonderful escape from his City job. He offered me some pocket money to load his gun on a nearby game day. I was woefully underprepared for the snow and mud, overwhelmed in my mum's oversized waterproof jacket and without wellington boots. However, I managed to have my first go at shooting, using my dad's Beretta 12-bore on an overhead pigeon. The cold and wet, combined with the heaviness of the gun and recoil, initially put me off pursuing it any further. But later I was offered the chance to shoot clays with a 20-bore using 21g cartridges, and I didn't look back.