Shooting for Gold
A guide to the shooters and events that could bring medals to Team USA
By Michael Bane - OutDoor LifeIt’s that once-every-four-years time again, when the summer television schedule is dominated by impossibly fit men and women, apparently from another planet, routinely doing the impossible. The Summer Games are guaranteed to captivate couch potatoes everywhere. And hard though it is to believe, given the usual absence of television coverage, shooting is one of the most popular events worldwide.
Of course, the first Olympic Games may have begun as a footrace to honor the Greek god Zeus, but leave it to us brash Americans to set the pace when firearms were added to the mix. The date was 1896, and the location was Athens, site of the first modern-day Olympics. There was no American team per se, but the Boston Athletic Association (BAA) had received an invitation to participate. And participate it did, with a group of 13 “self-appointed, haphazardly financed young men from Harvard and Princeton universities,” according to Olympic history records.
Among them was marksman John Paine, who stopped off in Paris to draft his brother Sumner into the bizarre BAA crusade. Shooting was to be a part of the new Olympics; however, there were no international standards or published details of the events—not even a description of the targets. The brothers Paine decided to err on the side of caution, loading up their trunk with two Colt New Model Army .45s, two S&W Russian revolvers, a Stevens .22 target pistol, a Wurfflien .22 single-shot gallery pistol, a couple of pocket pistols and a total of 3,500 rounds of ammunition for the 96 shots they’d each take in Athens.
On the day of the 25-meter pistol competition, the two brothers arrived at what Sumner called “the prettiest shooting house in the world, 200 feet long built entirely of snow-white marble.” The brothers triumphed, despite their .22 target pistols having been disqualified by the Greek Olympic committee on the grounds that the .22 was “not a usual caliber,” the only rule for Olympic pistols. Using the big Army Colts, the brothers, with John in the lead, scored a one-two victory, even though they had to hold the Colts (sighted in at 50 yards) over the target. The next day John sat out, and Sumner took first place in the 30-meter revolver competition with the S&W Russian. They both sat out the third pistol competition (25-meter dueling pistol) to give someone else a chance to win.
For their victory the men each received an olive branch from Altis, the sacred groves of Olympia, the first home of the Olympics, and a silver medal (gold being considered “crass”) for first and a bronze medal for second. They also received prizes donated by local merchants, including a case of local wine and a dozen silk ties from an Athens department store.
Olympic Shooting Today
Shooting has been integral to the modern Games ever since, and, America excluded, the shooting events have remained among the most popular with viewers. Over the years, Americans have won 44 gold medals (the crassness apparently wore off), 25 silver and 30 bronze. Two shooters share the U.S. record with swimmer Mark Spitz for most medals won in a single Olympics. They are Willis Lee and Lloyd Spooner, who each won seven medals in rifle competition at the 1920 Games.
This year, for the first time since the Paines were the toast of the Games, the Olympics return to Athens, Greece. There will be a total of 17 shooting events contested by 390 athletes. (And although Olympic television provider NBC has promised 24-hour coverage and TV spots for every single sport, plan to stay up late if you want to see any of the shooting.)
This year, though, marks something of a watershed for USA Shooting, the national governing body for Olympic shooting in the United States. After years of a dearth of medals, USA Shooting is heading into the 2004 Summer Games with not only its most powerful array of shooters in a couple of decades, but much greater support from the shooting community as well.
“Athens is going to be a lot of fun,” says USA Shooting executive director Robert Mitchell. “We’ve got a lot of athletes performing at a world-class level, and that makes us optimistic. It’s interesting, too, because like the other smaller Olympic sports, we’ve changed our operating philosophy to be more performance-based. Athens will be the first test of our new focus.”
That’s a very good thing, because our last really good year at the Games was 1984, when the U.S. scored three gold, one silver and two bronze medals…out of a potential 51-medal haul. There were some bright lights: Kim Rhode’s 1996 gold and 2000 bronze in double trap; Nancy Johnson’s first gold of the new century in air rifle and Launi Meili’s 1992 gold in three-position rifle. But on the whole, the country with the most guns has stumbled in producing the best shooters.
Stranger still for a country that leads the world in participation in the handgun shooting sports, we have to go all the way back to 1960 to see an American gold medal in any of the handgun disciplines (Bill McMillan, rapid-fire pistol). The last American handgun medal of any metal was current handgun national coach Erich Buljung’s silver for men’s air pistol in 1988. In 2004, we won’t even be competing in every pistol event.
Off the record, people close to the U.S. shooting effort point to the same problems that have plagued the other “lesser” Olympic sports. While the Olympics is very huge and very rich, on a national level the money and the sponsorship dollars go to the flashier, more visible “name” sports. Think 13-year-old female gymnasts, million-dollar basketball players or even track-and-field superstars.
Of course, there’s the gorilla in the closet—the inescapable fact that Olympic shooting is still shooting, like with guns.
“Good grief, yes!” says Mitchell. “We have challenges that none of the other Olympic sports have. The fact that we are a shooting sport, even at the Olympic level, has implications in every single area. For example, several major insurance companies won’t even provide bids for our corporate insurance, even though we can prove that sport shooting is one of the safest sports in the world. What’s more frustrating, though, is our limitations with sponsors. The big corporations typically shy away from shooting.”
Additionally, the persistent media bias against guns and shooting makes it extremely hard for even successful shooting athletes to have the exposure of, say, mountain-biking competitors, even though based on numbers of participants (from the National Shooting Sports Foundation), many more people participate in the shooting sports than in mountain biking.
So how do we handicap these Summer Games? Well, it’s a little hard to say, since, as we went to press, not all of the Olympic team members had been chosen. For certain, though, we will not be competing in free pistol, rapid-fire pistol or women’s air pistol.
Stars to Watch
The first is Kim Rhode, who at the ripe old age of 25 will be swinging for the wall. Her signature event, women’s double trap, with two clay pigeons smoking out at 50 mph, is scheduled to be eliminated from the Olympics after the Athens Games, so she’s going to want to put the final exclamation point on a sport she’s dominated. She’s been shooting extremely well, taking a gold in 2003 at the Pan Am Games and the World Cup as well as snagging the women’s double-trap national championship.
Also, watch trap and double-trap specialist Lance Bade, the 33-year-old double Olympian (with a bronze in trap from 1996). Lance has already nailed his spot in Athens. This looks like his year for the center spot on the podium, and he knows it. “I’m feeling really comfortable with how I’m shooting right now,” Bade says.
One of the biggest threats Lance faces is from his teammate, Sergeant First Class Brett Erickson of the Army Marksmanship Unit (AMU). Another two-time Olympian, Brett swept through the qualifying matches.
On the skeet side of things, AMU member Todd Graves has a good shot at repeating or bettering his 2000 bronze, if he can find another good luck charm like the stuffed koala bear given to him by an Australian woman in Sydney just before his run of 50 clay pigeons.
Also keep your eye on the “young guns” pistol combo of John Bickar and Jason Turner. Bickar was the 2002 national champion in air, standard, centerfire and rapid-fire pistol and is the national record-holder in rapid-fire pistol. Turner dominated air and free pistol in 2003. Women’s sport pistol remains a toss-up, with two-time Olympian Beki Snyder and 2000 Olympian Janine Bowman confronting a challenge from newcomer Melissa McConnell.
Rifle whiz Jason Parker of the AMU, who set a new world record in men’s air rifle in mid-2003, is a good bet to see some podium time for either the air-rifle or three-position rifle event. Another face to watch in rifle is 23-year-old Matt Emmons of Alaska, whose come-from-behind victory at the 2002 World Championships in 50-meter prone put him on the map.
With health problems keeping 2000 gold medalist Nancy Johnson out of the running in 10-meter air rifle, the women’s air rifle and three-position rifle field is wide open. Contenders here include Jaimie Beyerle (gold medalist, 2003 World Cup), Sarah Blakeslee (silver medalist, 2003 Pan-Am Games), Emily Caruso and 2000 Olympian Melissa Mulloy.
If somebody held a gun to my head and asked, I’d have to say that we’re on track for five or six medals—Kim Rhode, Lance Bade, Jason Parker, Todd Graves and women’s air rifle…with fingers crossed on men’s air pistol. If we don’t come away with at least four medals, I wouldn’t want to be standing around the Olympic range in Colorado Springs. Especially if I was a coach.
Finally, there’s one “lesson” from those first Athens Games in 1896 that we won’t be using in 2004: Other shooting competitors noticed that on the first day, the Paine brothers paused to take a little sip of whiskey from their pocket flasks when the tension was running high. By the second day, many of the assembled marksmen had their own pocket flasks…
Here’s the absolute truth—an afternoon on the Olympic campus in Colorado Springs is a humbling experience, and not just because you’re in the Land of Four Percent Body Fat.
Spending time with any Olympic athlete makes you painfully aware of what those athletes have given up for a chance at a gold medal. Lives are put on hold; academics and careers stall; opportunities for income are lost; and spouses, parents and friends all wait while the athlete pursues that most elusive of goals: one moment of glory.
With that in mind, let’s meet some of the shooting athletes who will be representing the United States in Athens.
With a gold and a bronze in double trap and a career that is nothing short of amazing, Kim Rhode is indeed the gold standard. Think of Kim as “the coolest girl in your high school whom you would have auctioned off your grandmother to date if you were only a little bit cooler yourself.” Kim builds exotic cars, turning every bolt herself; seriously surfs; hangs out with Aboriginal tribal elders in Australia; gives motivational talks to multinational companies; hunts big game; wins Olympic medals; and is an unfailing ambassador for shooting and firearms.
My pal John Bickar was a great fan of soccer and a veteran baseball player before he found his true calling in Olympic pistols. As a resident athlete in Colorado Springs, he spends his time training and competing, but he still had time to co-author The Fabjob Guide to Become an Olympic Athlete for the Web site fabjob.com. Here’s what he says in his intro (take note, because this may be the most important advice you get today): “Make your goals realistic, but set them high. You learn a lot more by just missing your target than by achieving a mediocre goal.”
Alaskan Matt Emmons came into the spotlight in a USA Today interview after an Olympic water polo player (there’s a sport for the ages!) suggested that after he retired, he’d like to be a shooter, since “all you do is stand around a lot of the time.”
Emmons pointed out that he trained in his rifle discipline from four to six hours straight every day, plus put in five days a week of physical training.
Trap shooter Lance Bade is all about focus: “You don’t make an Olympic team and do it part-time,” he says. Before any big match you’ll find him at the Olympic range in Colorado Springs, shooting 500 to 1,000 rounds a day. In between training, he juggles two careers: his own landscaping business in summer and a hunting-guide business in fall.
Women’s trap competitor Collyn Loper is scheduled to graduate from high school in 2005, and that’s including the side trip to Athens she won in a high-pressure, 25-round tie-breaker with Staff Sgt. Joetta Dement of the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit. “It was pretty tough,” she says. “I’ve never concentrated that hard before. I’m surprised my brain didn’t explode.” Loper, a junior, was born blind in her right eye. She does everything right-handed except shoot, which she had to train herself to do left-handed.
The Games Themselves
Okay, let me make one thing perfectly clear…every single one of the Olympic shooting sports is really, really hard.
I am, as they say, a veteran shooting sports competitor, and I occasionally have my moments. On the various firing lines at the Olympic Center, though, the only moments I’ve ever had were about humiliation…mine.
Honesty compels me to say, however, that the Olympic shooting sports are perhaps not as exciting to watch as, say, gymnastics or wrestling. Still, let’s see what we’ve got to look forward to in Athens, if, in fact, any of the shooting ends up on television for longer than the blink of an eye.
Air Rifle
specs: Very expensive, iron-sighted, .177-caliber air rifles at 10 meters fired at a 10-ring smaller than a flyspeck. Competitors in the men’s event fire 60 shots, standing, in an hour and 45 minutes. Then, the top eight competitors shoot a final 10-shot round.
women: There’s no rhyme or reason as to why women shoot different courses of fire. In the case of the air rifle event, for example, women gain the huge “advantage” of an increase in the 10-ring from .5mm to .55mm.
top gun: We’ve never won a medal here, but American Jason Parker holds the current world record, set in 2003.Rapid-Fire Pistol
specs: Another real bear, with .22 Short pistols fired at phased appearing/disappearing targets 25 meters away. The 10-ring on the target measures 4 inches across. There are a total of 60 shots in 5-shot strings, and the times are 8 seconds, 6 seconds and finally 4 seconds.
history: Rapid-fire pistol has been an event since the inception of the modern Olympics.
top guns: In recent years, the sport has been dominated by the awesome German shooting machine Ralf Schumann, although Bill McMillan won the gold for the U.S. in 1960.Running Target
specs: A really cool event, shot with an air rifle at 10 meters. The athletes fire at a bull’s-eye measuring slightly less than ¼-inch moving across a 2-meter opening. There are 60 shots required, evenly divided between slow (5 seconds to cross the opening) and fast (2.5 seconds). The rifle starts at hip level. This is a men’s-only event.
bummer: As groovy as it is, don’t start loving this event. Sadly, it’s on the chopping block to make way for supposedly more popular summer sports. Can Olympic doggie frisbee be far behind?Sport Pistol
specs: This event is for women only. A strange amalgam of the men’s free pistol and rapid-fire pistol events, it includes a precision 25- meter stage of 60 shots and a rapid-fire stage, also at 25 meters, with the target appearing for three seconds and a single shot, then disappearing for seven seconds. Only open-sighted pistols are allowed.
top guns: Ruby Fox won the silver for Uncle Sam in 1984. Luna Tao, a shooter from China, tied the world record in 2002 with a 594 out of 600. She also holds the finals world record, having shot a 695.7 out of a possible 709.Skeet
specs: For the men, this event entails trying to bust 125 birds over two days. women: Seventy-five clay targets shot over two days. Not a sport we’ve excelled in, but Athens marks one of our strongest teams in years.
a ‘perfect’ event: There are lots of perfect scores in men’s skeet, and the gold, silver and bronze medals are decided in a final-round shoot-off.
top gun: American Todd Graves grabbed bronze in 2000, but he’s going to have to work it hard in Athens to medal again.Double Trap
specs: The two birds in the double trap competition come screaming at 50 mph or better. Men shoot 150 clays, divided into three rounds of 25 pairs each.
women: Sadly this event is on the way out after this year, presumably so the International Olympic Committee can consider, say, tiddlywinks. Again, a brutally hard sport, but with 120 birds instead of 150. The closest anyone has come to that perfect 120 is Kim Rhode, with 118. She won gold in 1996 and bronze in 2000.
top gun: It’s so hard that the world record for the 150 birds is 147, fired by Aussie Michael Diamond in 1998.Free Pistol
specs: This one is a bear. Iron-sighted .22 Long-Rifle pistols at 50 meters; 60 shots with a time limit of two hours. Women do not compete in this event.
how hard?: Think shooting at a 2-inch bull’s-eye from the 50-yard-line of a football field. Oh yeah, and you can only use one hand.Rifle Prone
top guns: The current Olympic and world record is 581, shot by Aleksandr Melentev from the Soviet Union in 1980. Franklin Green of the U.S. snared a silver medal here in 1964.
specs: Once again we see our pal the .22 single-shot, once again with iron sights, fired from 50 meters prone at a 3/8-inch bull’s-eye. To put this in a bit of perspective, that bull’s eye presents a smaller target than a dime.
record score: The perfect qualifying score is 600, which has been the world, Olympic and U.S. national record for years. That, folks, is the definition of a “good group”! top gun: Ed Etzel of the U.S. won gold here in the glory year of 1984. This is another men’s-only event.Three-Position Rifle
specs: This one has been around (at least for men) since the turn of the century and currently features iron-sighted .22 single-shot rifles fired at 50 meters from three positions—standing, kneeling and prone. It’s 120 shots in three hours.
women: The same, except it’s 60 shots in 2 hours and 15 minutes.
top guns: American Bob Foth won the silver in 1992. Among women Olympians, the Eastern Europeans and the Chinese have been consistently strong in this event.Trap
specs: For the men, the trap event entails 125 fast birds shot over two days. The top six competitors advance to a 25-target final round.
women: For reasons no one can adequately explain, women shoot just 75 clay pigeons.
top guns: We looked good in 1996 when Josh Lakatos won the silver and Lance Bade won the bronze. By the way, Lance Bade tied the 125-round perfect-score world record in 1998. Collyn Loper of the U.S. holds the women’s national record at 65, but she’s still a far cry from the world record of 74 set by Victoria Chuyko of the Ukraine.Air Pistol
specs: Really cool air pistols at 10 meters at a bull’s-eye less than ½-inch in diameter. Sixty shots, with a time limit of one hour and 54 minutes.
women: Forty shots in an hour and 15 minutes. Target size and distance shot is the same as in the men’s event. We’ve never won a medal in this one.
top guns: John Bickar holds the Final National Record, which is within spitting distance of the Olympic record. Current U.S. Pistol Coach Eric Buljung won the silver in 1988.Article URL