[1][3] Skoko-Celic competed internationally for the former SFR Yugoslavia at the age of twenty-one, and eventually got off to a brilliant career start with a bronze medal each at the ISSF World Cup series in 1986 and in 1991.

[4][5] In 1993, Skoko-Celic reached the peak of her career by capturing her first silver medal in air pistol shooting at the ISSF World Cup meet in Munich, Germany, firing a total score of 484.3 points, a stark improvement from her remarkable fourth-place effort at the Olympics.

[6][7] Despite missing out the 2000 Olympic bid, Skoko-Celic came back with a vengeance for her third Games by firing a fifth-place score of 482.1 in air pistol shooting at the 2002 ISSF World Championships in Lahti, Finland.

She managed to get a minimum qualifying score of 384 on her former event to gain an Olympic quota place for Croatia in shooting, following a fifth-place finish at the Worlds two years earlier.

[1][8][10] Coming to the Games as fifth in the world ranking, Skoko-Celic fired a frustrating 381 out of a possible 400 to take the fifteenth position in the 10 m air pistol, just three points away from her pre-Olympic qualifying standard.