USA Shooting’s National Championships look to increases

[USAMU]

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - USA Shooting’s 2005 Rifle and Pistol National Championships, which will be conducted at Fort Benning, Ga., June 16 to 26, will not only double as the Championship of the America’s Team Selection Match, will also focus on drawing newcomers to the Olympic shooting sports, said Sara Greenlee, media director of USA Shooting. With additional cash prizes, awards and clinics, USA Shooting hopes these initiatives will draw in a new generation of Olympic-style shooters, Greenlee added.

“This has always been an objective of USA Shooting, since any time we have an increase in participation, it broadens our athlete pool,” said USA Shooting’s Director of Operations Wanda Jewell. “But recently with the new United States Olympic Committee’s performance-based initiatives, it has become increasingly clear that we need to do something that will help our medal count as we look at 2012 and beyond.”

Scott Pilkington, who is the owner of Pilkington Competition Equipment and is a frequent gunsmith for the USA Shooting Team at national and international events, said he was eager to do his part. Pilkington Competition is offering up to $7,000 cash to nonsupported shooters of various disciplines at different levels. Supported shooters such as the Olympic Training Center residents or U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit members are not eligible. And considering this is the first time that anyone outside of the USA Shooting organization has put up cash incentives to compete at the National Championships, Pilkington said he is anticipating positive feedback.

“The main reason we are doing this is to encourage participation in Olympic shooting,” Pilkington said. “I have always admired the dedication that the Olympic hopefuls put into this sport and wished that there could be a way that they could receive some of the monetary benefits like the action pistol shooters receive, so I just finally did it, and here we are.

“We are also trying to encourage this as a family sport,” Pilkington added. “In addition to the numerous individual prizes, we are also offering some team prizes and a family-pairs prize. We are also really trying to encourage first-timers at the Nationals, so each event will have cash award for the highest score of all the first-time attendees, as well.”

Another addition to this year’s championships is the creation of a Junior Grand Champion Award, which will be for junior competitors who competes in every event within their discipline who have the highest combined score, without finals. According to USA Shooting’s Competition Manager Mary Smith, the purpose of the Junior Grand Champion Award is to give recognition to the extra work and discipline it takes for a junior to compete in all of these events. “It will also create a little more shooter involvement in the non-Olympic events being shot at the Nationals,” Smith said.

As for the CAT Team Selection part of this year’s Nationals, USA Shooting will be selecting two junior team members from each Olympic shooting event to travel to Salinas, Puerto Rico, in mid-November. Junior team members are any shooter under 21 or anyone who has been on the National Team for less than a year.

For more information on the 2005 USA Shooting National Championships, log on to www.usashooting.org, or call (719) 866-4885 to speak to someone in the competitions department. For more information on Pilkington Competition Equipment, log on to www.pilkguns.com.

(Formed in 1956 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower to raise the standards of marksmanship throughout the U.S. Army, the Army Marksmanship Unit is assigned to the Accessions Support Brigade of the U.S. Army Accessions Command. Accessions Command is charged with overseeing recruiting and training of the Army’s enlisted Soldiers and officers. The Marksmanship Unit trains its Soldiers to win competitions and enhances combat readiness through train-the-trainer clinics, research and development. For more information on the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit, contact the Public Affairs Office at (706) 545-5436, paula.pagan@usaac.army.mil or http://www.usarec.army.mil/hq/amu/. For more information on USA Shooting, contact media director Sara Greenlee at (719) 866-4896, sara.greenlee@usashooting.org or http://www.usashooting.com.)