By TERRY JONES -- Edmonton Sun
 Susan Nattrass is 49 years old. She'll turn 50 two months after the Sydney Olympics. Her Sydney Olympics.

 As was the case when the Edmonton trap shooter broke the barrier and became the first woman to compete in the Olympics against the men in Montreal in 1976, Susan Nattrass is going to be one of the best stories on the property in Sydney.

 For the first time women will have their own trap shooting event at the 2000 Olympic Games. And Nattrass has qualified. She'll be on the Canadian Olympic Team.

 "I thought it would be my legacy,'' she said on the phone from a competition site in Italy.

 "I didn't expect to compete.

 DIDN'T EXPECT TO GET IN

 "I did the protesting, I did the petitioning, I met with Juan Antonio Samaranch. I got Women's Sports International involved. I was going to be retiring. I thought I'd be going to Sydney to see my legacy. I did it for my niece, my friend and their daughters so they'd have a future. I didn't expect to get in.''

 But she did. For the fourth time, Susan Nattrass has been named an Olympian.

 I remember the first time. Good gawd. I'll be covering my 11th Olympics in Sydney. She was in my first. Montreal. 1976.

 "You were just a pup and so was I,'' she laughed.

 I told her what I remembered most. Her legs.

 Nattrass knew she was a photo-op. She knew she was a story.

 "I was the first and only female,'' she said.

 She had these long, shapely legs and she wore short shorts and ...

 "Yes,'' she laughed. "I was playing to the crowd. I was playing to the cameras. I was playing to the men. I was making the most of the moment.

 "I'm now wearing longer shorts.''

 I don't know about you, but I thought Susan Nattrass had retired.

 "Never officially,'' she said.

 "For a while there I didn't shoot much.''

 She worked at St. Mary's University in Halifax from 1990 to 1995 and that's not exactly Annie Oakley country.

 "There was no place to practise.''

 As Dr. Susan Nattrass, she now works in an osteoporosis research unit in Seattle. She's spending much more time back home and officially shoots out of the Strathcona Range.

 "I get home quite a bit. I'll be home on the 30th. I don't know if I should be telling anybody about this. But I'm coming home to be inducted into the Edmonton Sports Hall of Fame.''

 Nattrass hopes to repay the honour by bringing a World Cup event to Edmonton.

 "I think that could happen in 2003. The Strathcona Range is such a great range. I'd love to show my world Edmonton.''

 Who knows. She might be inspired to stay around and keep competing through until then.

 In trying to track her down I talked to Susan's mother, who said the family had been trying to talk Susan into retiring for years.

 "Good thing we didn't,'' laughed Marie.

 "I think she kept shooting because she loves the international competitions. She's so well-known in Europe and in Japan.''

 Nattrass, who also competed at Seoul and the Barcelona Olympic Summer Games says it's simple.

 "I still enjoy it.''

 But, she added, there was another factor.

 "I didn't want it to end on a sour note. In 1992 I couldn't shoot in the Olympics. That's when I started my crusade,'' she said of the "men only" rule that had been adopted.

 TREATED WELL

 "But mom's right, too. I'm more respected in Italy than by Canadian shooters. I think it's the familiarity-breeds-contempt thing,'' she laughed.

 "I'm so well-treated. I love the competition. And the other shooters are so great. They keep telling me, 'You can't retire, there will be nobody else to fight for us.'

 "It's wonderful to be in the Olympics with these women now. I'll be competing with women I really like. I know them all. It'll be so neat to compete at the Olympics with such great friends who are so appreciative of what I did.

 "I've had so many of them tell me, 'If I can't win, I sure hope you do.' ''