Breanna ‘Bree’ Maree Dowse Collins is a shooter, specialising in clay target shooting, who was awarded a Tier 3 Scholarship within the 2023 Sport Australia Hall of Fame Scholarship and Mentoring Program.
Bree was born in Cairns, Queensland, in 2002, and since a young age has had a passion for diverse sports. Among Clay Target Shooting she had her hands full, participating in touch football, drill dance, swimming, volleyball, netball, and dance. She has represented the Southwest Region in swimming and netball. She currently plays competitive indoor and outdoor netball but had to put her sports load on hold to dedicate her time to shooting.
It took 14 years of watching her parents, oldest sister and Grandfather compete in shooting for her to build up the courage to fire a shotgun for the first time. After smashing her first clay target in Down the Line (DTL discipline), she fell in love with the sport. Since then, Bree has been an active member at the Chinchilla Clay Target Club. DTL was Bree’s first shooting discipline, and after 2 years, travelled to her first ISSF Trap (Olympic Trap) event in Brisbane (2018 QLD State Titles). From here her enthusiasm and craving for more grew and now largely focuses on ISSF Trap.
Bree represented Australia for the first time at the age of 16 at the Oceania Championships in 2019 and won bronze in the women’s final. This success created a snowball affect when she went on to set a junior women’s Oceana finals record and in a space of 3 months she had won 3 bronze medals and Overall High guns at inter-state events. Bree was also one of many females fighting for a spot in the 2020 Olympics however, she fell short but this only burned her determination for Paris 2024 and beyond.
In 2021, Bree was selected to represent Australia at the 2021 Junior World Championship in Peru, unfortunately, due to COVID-19 Australia did not send their team.
COVID-19 made it difficult to shoot in 2020 and 2021, as travelling and shooting was very restricted, especially since she lives four hours away from her closest training range (Brisbane). During the pandemic Bree was graduating grade 12 and settling into her new Administration Traineeship at CS Energy (Kogan Creek Power Station).
2022 was another year of growth for Bree, after immense work and dedication travelling to train, she noticed an improvement in her performance in a few short months. She placed fifth at the Victorian State Titles after shooting a PB of 114/125 and qualified her as the number one lady for the semi-finals, qualified as number four for the semi finals at the New South Wales State Titles – shot a 111/125 to place fifth and won the B grade High Gun and to finalise her trifecta of State Titles, Bree competed in the Queensland State Titles. At these Titles she shot a 110/125, qualified as second, made the finals with a 21/25 single barrel PB and placed fourth overall. This result qualified her for the Junior QLD State Team and won Junior Ladies High Gun.
To top off a stellar 2022, her results were enough to qualify Bree as the number 1 Junior Women and selected to compete at the ISSF World Championships in Osijek, Croatia in September 2022.
“To be selected as a Sport Australian Hall of Fame Scholarship Holder it is an absolute pleasure and I am honoured to be given this opportunity to grow as a person and as an athlete. This Scholarship and Mentoring Program means a great deal, as my clay target shooting potential has been recognised, through my dedication and commitment. My shooting journey is still at its early stages and this Scholarship will help support with various training and competition expenses and will contribute to me reaching my ultimate goals to be an Australia Olympian and World Class Performer. Thank you again for this rare, yet exciting opportunity and congratulations to the other recipients.” – Bree Collins on being selected as a 2023 Tier 3 Scholarship Holder.
Honours & Achievements
- 2018: ACTA ISSF Development Camp
- 2019: Queensland State Titles – Bronze
- 2019: Oceania Championships – Bronze and set a Junior Oceania
- 2019: Oceania Championships, Women’s Teams – Silver
- 2019: QCTA Academy
- 2019: New South Wales ISSF State Titles – Bronze
- 2020: Shooting Australia National Squad Member
- 2021: Australia Day Local Sport Award (Chinchilla)
- 2021: Queensland ISSF Trap Women’s Junior Team
- 2021: Selected in the Women’s Junior World Championships Team
- 2021: Shooting Australia National Squad Member
- 2022: Queensland Junior ISSF Trap Junior Team
- 2022: World Championships – Junior Women’s ISSF Trap Team
- 2022: Victorian State Titles – 5th
- 2022: New South Wales State Titles – 5th
- 2022: Queensland State Titles – 4th
- 2023: Sport Australia Hall of Fame Scholarship Holder
