Did any of the "name" shooters make the Olympics?

B

Blue Duck357

New member
Read in G/A that the the U.S. shooting team had invited several big name shooters such as Rob Leathem and other champions from IPSC,IDPA and even SASS to a special try out for the Olympic team.

Anyone know if any of them got a spot?
 
Since they are trying out for the summer olympics I dont think the decisions are made yet. The olympic trial are usually only a few months before the games.
 
I thought you had to be an "amatuer" to be in the olympics, ie couldn't be a professional at the sport. Wasn't there a big brouhaha about letting pro basketball players in? Somewhere there was a newsie comment about the police snipers protecting the olympics being better than the olympic shooters themselves. Might make good press to say that and appease the sheeple, but somehow I doubt it's true. Doesn't matter, the shooting sports get no airtime anyway.

"What!!! Shooting guns is an OLYMPIC event??? I thought guns were just for killing people!!!!"

Yeah, like the marathon, javelin toss, archery, and wrestling competitions had NO origins in military applications :rolleyes:

LAter.
 
I don't know about that; but would suspect that the skills might not translate too well. Those ISU events are very standardized and the shooters are really grooved.

However, there was some talk about getting IPSC in as a demonstration event. They now have the "Classic" non-humanoid target and were working on a scoring scheme that could be comprehended by non-members. They were leaning toward a time plus penalty system similar to IDPA at one time.
 
IPSC was going to be a demo event in 200 but they stopped that programsince there were to many events. Some of the stuff that is in the Olympics is ridiculous. There are major sports like rollerblading that arent in it either. But double trampoline is!
 
Olympic Update

Event in Colorado Springs at the Olympic center in early December was spectacular.

U.S. coaches were "stunned" at the level of expertise of the 10 action shooters who attended the event.

At this point, it looks like Todd Jarrett, Bruce Piatt, Doug Koenig, Mickey Fowler, John Pride, Brcue gray and Don Golembieski may be making a serious run at the 2004 Summer Games in Athens.

Michael Bane
National Shooting Sports Foundation
 
Michael: That is very interesting. What kind of shooting did they do ? Was it some type of action type senario that they set up ? What was amazing about it ? The speed, accuracy, both ?

How about expanding on this idea that police snipers being better than the olympic shooters. I personally find this idea ridiculous. These serious competitive shooters shoot constantly. Not plinking at beer cans, but serious shooting where every shot counts and every shot is counted and evaluated. They are coached by the finest coaches in the world. They have access to other coaches in physical fitness, mental toughness etc. Shooting is basically their life. Just because they may do a different type of shooting, the skills will transfer over. Someone who competes in an event that involves shooting from positions at long range just might be able to make a 100 yard shot lying on a rooftop with the rifle equiped with a bipod on a target as big as a human torso.
 
I would imagine that a lot of those action pistol shooters would excel in international rapid fire and probably standard pistol as well. The precision events such as 50 meter free pistol might not come as easy to them (to quote a USMA team member, "shooting free pistol is like getting a kick to the junk").

As far as professional shooters, several members of the Army Marksmanship Unit are on the National Team. You don't get any more professional than being told your job is to win matches.
 
Falconer speaks the truth.

brianenos.com had some posts about the practical/action stars doing a demo of International Rapid-Fire pistol, but I can't find them. Anyone?

BTW, for those who don't know, ISSF Rapid Fire involves firing five shots at five targets at 25 meters, in strings of eight, six, and four seconds. .22 Short automatics with wraparound orthopedic grips are the pistol of choice.

- Chris
 
Professional shooter no problem. Some in the past have made pretty good bucks in shooting during the off years. World cup pays quite good prize money and some of the manufacturers pay well to shoot their stuff. Also good contingincy money at the national and international level matches.

Sam
 
From what I heard, Jerry Miculek was shooting as fast as he can reload, kind of obvious. They gave them 3 cases of ammo figuring it would last the whole weekend, they ran out of ammo by 11AM the first day.

After the whole thing, Bruce Gray took his 6 worst scores, that qualified for the Olympic team. His best 6 scores broke the National record. I know Bruce has tried to get into the Olympic events when he was on the east coast, but the problem was some of the shooters were elitist and wouldn't allow newcomers.
 
We had a discussion at my club about the olympic shooting sports. The problem seems to be that the team is essentially an elite club which is mostly closed to outsiders.. To make the olympic team you have to have competed in the last year in about 20 international matches. That means flying all over the world at your own expense to compete.
When there were more college teams 20 years ago it was a different story.
Now it is limited to the military (professional competitors) and the wealth few that can afford to maintain the competition schedule.

The same thing though can be said for many of the Olympic sports. Dressage and other equestrian events come to mind.

My club has a member of the national collegiate championship team at free pistol as a member, he is 19 years old and at the naval academy.:)
 
I shot against your club member a little over a week ago Blaster. Not only did Navy's first team whoop on us, but the second team did as well.

Also, I wouldn't call it so much of an elite club. They recruit collegiate shooters and the winners of junior nationals for the development team.
 
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