This is an honour he solely shares with the legendary American female clay target shooter and six time Olympic medalist, Kimberley Rhode.
In early 1997 he left the valuing and real estate industry and became a full time professional clay target shooting competitor after accepting two lucrative contracts from the giant Italian firearms company, Beretta and the iconic American ammunition manufacturer, Winchester.
In March, 1999 Mark opened a food, alcohol and gaming machine establishment operating under the name of "The Tigers Clubhouse" in Hoppers Crossing, Victoria.
Also in 1996, the reigning Liberal Prime Minister, John Howard, introduced his National Firearms Legislation after thirty-five people lost their lives in a shocking shooting massacre at Port Arthur in Tasmania.
Surprisingly the Prime Minister received some support from Mark who had only just won a gold medal in the sport of shooting at the Atlanta Olympic Games.
Although Mark strenuously opposed Howard regarding his new restrictions that would ban ownership of semi-automatic shotguns and rimfire rifles, he did publicly state that it was his opinion that the sale of powerful semi-automatic centre-fire military style rifles, such as the AK-47 weapon that was used in the recent slaughter, should be restricted only to licensed firearm owners that could prove a genuine need to possess this type of gun such as government employed varmint eradication workers or certain rural farmers.
Since 1997 Russell Mark has been a supporter and public ambassador for the Pied Pipers charitable organisation that raises revenue annually for the Royal Melbourne Children Hospital's Good Friday Appeal.
Mark's two commercial businesses, The Tigers Clubhouse and Hotel 520, distribute approximately $250,000 annually to a wide range of sporting clubs and charities within the City of Wyndham through their community grants programs.
He owns two adjoining parcels of land that have frontage to the Darling River in western New South Wales, just north of the small town of Pooncarie, where he enjoys spending time fishing, hunting and trail bike riding.
On March 17, 2004 he married the American born, triple Commonwealth Games gold medallist and dual Olympian, Lauryn Mark (née Ogilvie) in a surprise wedding ceremony on a deserted beach at Hamilton Island, Queensland.
In 2006, Mark competed at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games where he won a gold medal with Craig Trembath in the Double Trap Pairs event.
On August 26, 2014 Mark announced he would be retiring from international competition on September 14, 2014 at the conclusion of the ISSF World Championship which was conducted in Granada, Spain.
He has trained competitors, national teams and coaches in a multitude of countries that include Great Britain, USA, Qatar, India, Thailand, Japan, Brunei, Singapore, Philippines, South Korea, Trinidad and Tobago, Slovenia, Montenegro, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Kuwait and Italy.
In October, 1996 Mark received world-wide media attention for taking a contract to coach Prince Sufri Bolkiah from Brunei, at his personal shooting range for two weeks.
In April, 2022 he agreed on a one-year contract to be employed by the Sports Authority of India as the foreign Trap shooting coach for the Indian Shotgun Team.
Mark started employment with the Qatar Olympic Committee on July 5, 2023 as the coach of the National Trap Shooting Team for the remainder of the 2023 international season.
On October 30, 2023 Mark triumphantly gained Qatar entry into the Men's Trap event at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games after they won a starting quota place at the 15th Asian Shooting Championships held at Changwon, South Korea which was the last major title of the year.
Mark achieved immediate international success with the Australian Team when they won the 2024 World Cup at Baku, Azerbaijan in the Men's Trap competition therefore gaining his athlete entry into the 2024 Olympic Games.
In doing so he became the first coach in the history of the International Shooting Sports Federation to be involved in qualifying three athletes from three different countries for participation into the Olympic Games in the one single Olympiad; India in 2022, Qatar in 2023 and finally Australia in 2024.
On July 14, 2024 News Corp Australia published articles announcing that for the week prior to the 2024 Olympics commencing, Mark would be coaching the Indian Men's Trap team at a shooting range on the outskirts of Paris.
Russell Mark has written a monthly coaching and advice article for Australia's largest shooting sports publication, Australian Shooter, since 1998.
He was preceded by Donald Macintosh who titled at the Paris 1900 Summer Olympics..[8] The Australian Clay Target Association made Russell Mark a life member in March 2024.