When she qualified for the 2020 Summer Games, Madelynn Bernau, 23, of Waterford was the first Wisconsinite to make a U.S. Olympic trapshooting team, according to USA Shooting records.
She didn’t stop there.
On Saturday Bernau became the first state resident to win an Olympic trapshooting medal.
Bernau and teammate Brian Burrows took the bronze in mixed trap at the Tokyo Summer Games.
After qualifying fourth out of 16 teams at the Asaka Shooting Range in Tokyo, the American duo won a shoot-off over Zuzana Rehak Stefecekova and Erik Varga of Slovakia.
The teams each hit 42 of 50 targets through the regulation phase of the bronze medal match and each competitor broke one target to begin the shoot-off.
Rehak Stefecekova, who won the gold medal in women’s trapshooting on Thursday, then missed. Bernau steeled her nerves and broke the next target, securing the bronze for Team USA.
“When we needed to remain calm and strong we did, and that was all that mattered,” Bernau said in post-event comments provided by USA Shooting.
Bernau began trapshooting as a youth in 4-H and Scholastic Clay Target Programs in Waterford and Burlington.
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A standout at Waterford High School, she went on to compete in trapshooting in college, including at Martin Methodist College in Pulaski, Tennessee, where in 2020 she earned a degree in biology/biomedical sciences, and set her sights on representing her country in her favorite sport.
She secured one of two spots on the U.S. Olympic women’s trapshooting team in March 2020.
The Tokyo Games featured the inaugural Olympic competition for mixed trap. The event features a male and female on the same team; each participant shot 75 targets through qualification rounds.
Bernau was one of only two shooters to break all 75 targets in qualifying. Alberto Fernandez of Spain was the other.
The top two teams vied for gold and silver, the third and fourth for the bronze.
The Spanish team of Fernandez and Fatima Galvez won the gold and the San Marino pair of Alessandra Perilli and Gian Marco Berti took the silver.
Burrows, 33, of Torrance, California, shot 71 through the first three rounds and credited Bernau with carrying the team through qualifying. They qualified for the bronze medal match by one target.
“It is such a crazy feeling right now, you train your whole life for this moment,” Burrows said. “It was a roller coaster of emotions but we came out on top of that roller coaster.”
Though this was her first Olympics and Bernau is a relative newcomer to international trapshooting — the Tokyo trip was just her fifth overseas competition — her performance this year has proven she is among the world’s elite women’s trapshooters.
Bernau took the silver medal in May in women’s trapshooting at the World Cup in Lonato, Italy.
And she placed seventh in women’s trap in Tokyo, missing the finals by one target. She rebounded with three unblemished qualifying rounds in mixed trap.
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It was the first time Bernau had run 75 straight in international trap (which throws targets faster and at more angles than American trap) in competition and she did it on the sport’s biggest stage.
“For it to be at an Olympic Games is still a dream come true to me,” Bernau said. “I had no expectations coming into this. It was a very neat experience, and I’m already looking forward to 2024.”
Team USA exceeds goal in shooting sports
Through Saturday morning, the U.S. won six medals in shooting events, doubling its total in the entire 2016 Summer Games in Rio and exceeding its goal of four set prior to the Tokyo Games by USA Shooting CEO Matt Suggs.
In addition to the mixed trap bronze won by Bernau and Burrows in Tokyo, the U.S. won gold in men’s skeet (Vincent Hancock), gold in women’s skeet (Amber English), gold in men’s 10-meter air rifle (William Shaner), silver in women’s trapshooting (Kayle Browning) and silver in 10-meter air rifle mixed team (Mary Carolynn Tucker and Lucas Kozeniesky).
The U.S. had two competitors in each of the two remaining shooting events, men’s 50-meter three-position rifle and men’s 25-meter rapid fire pistol.
