Shooting Preview

USA Shooting · Post by **USA Shooting** » Wed Aug 06, 2008 5:38 pm

BEIJING, China – The shooting competition at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China is set to being on Saturday, August 9 and the U.S. Shooting team is ready to improve on their all-time Olympic medal tally of 97. The U.S. shooters are coming off a successful showing from the 2004 Athens Games, where the team captured two gold and one silver medal and is looking to bring home the hardware once again in Beijing.

Matt Emmons (Browns Mills, N.J.), the gold medalist in Men’s Prone from the 2004 Olympic Games, is back and ready to prove once again that he is among the best rifle shooters in the world. Emmons had an extremely successful 2007, winning a total of eight medals on the ISSF World Cup circuit. He secured his two spots on the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team in Men’s Prone Rifle and Men’s 3 Position Rifle and won a gold medal in the Men’s 50m 3 Position Rifle event, as well as a silver in the Men’s Prone Rifle event at the 2007 World Cup Final. Most recently, Emmons claimed a bronze medal in prone at the 2008 World Cup in Milan.

Emmons married Katerina Kurkova (now Katy Emmons) in Pilsen, Czech Republic on June 30, 2007. Katy and Matt first met at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, where Katy won a bronze medal and Matt took the gold. Both are members of the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team; Matt for the U.S. and Katy for the Czech Republic.

The United States Army Marksmanship Unit (USAMU) has consistently trained some of the top shooters in the U.S. for the Olympic Games over the years, and 2008 is no different. Six members of the USAMU will represent the U.S. at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, including Michael Anti (Winterville, N.C.), the 2004 Olympic silver medalist in Men’s 3 Position Rifle, who once again secured a spot on his fourth Olympic team, this time in Men’s Prone Rifle. Two-time Olympian Jason Parker (Omaha, Neb.), earned two spots on the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team in Men’s 10m Air Rifle as well as Men’s 3 Position Rifle. Four additional USAMU team members have also qualified for the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team (Daryl Szarenski in Pistol and Glenn Eller, Jeff Holguin and Vincent Hancock in Shotgun).

In addition to Parker qualifying for the Olympic team in Men’s Air Rifle, nineteen-year-old West Point Cadet Stephen Scherer (Billerica, Mass.) earned his first Olympic team berth and will be the second member of the Men’s Air Rifle team. Emily Caruso (Fairfield, Conn.), a 2004 Olympian, qualified for her second consecutive U.S. Olympic team in Women’s Air Rifle.

Jamie Beyerle (Lebanon, Pa.) has dominated the Women’s 3 Position Rifle event over the past few years. She won a bronze medal at the 2007 World Cup USA and claimed the gold at the Pan American Games. At the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials, Beyerle finished on top by a substantial margin of 22 points, to claim her first berth to the U.S. Olympic Team. Most recently, Beyerle captured the silver medal in Women’s 3 Position at the 2008 World Cup in Milan, Italy.

At 18 years of age, Sandra Fong (New York, N.Y.) is the youngest member of the 2008 U.S. Olympic Shooting team, having qualified for a spot in Women’s 3 Position Rifle. Fong’s younger sister, Danielle, recently qualified for a spot on the U.S. Paralympic Team in shooting and will be competing in the Paralympic Games in Beijing next month.

In shotgun, trap shooter Bret Erickson (Bennington, Neb.), 47, will be representing the U.S. on his fourth Olympic team. Erickson will be looking to claim his first Olympic medal in Beijing. He beat the odds when he competed in the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, despite a heart attack that nearly claimed his life right before the 2004 Games. Five weeks before the Olympics were set to begin in Athens, Erickson’s heart stopped during a run with his teammates. His teammates were able to get his heart going again and the doctors installed a pacemaker. Four weeks later, he shot in the Olympic Games in Athens. Erickson, who is retired from the USAMU, has had an extremely successful 2008, capturing a bronze medal at the 2008 “Good Luck Beijing” ISSF World Cup, which served as the test event for the Olympic Games in April, and a silver at the World Cup Suhl in June.

Forty-four year old Dominic Grazioli (San Antonio, Texas), a Major in the U.S. Air Force, is a seasoned veteran in the sport of trap shooting having won several World Cup medals during his career, just recently claiming the bronze medal at the World Cup USA in May. He was an alternate to the 1996 Olympic team and finally earned his first berth to U.S. Olympic Team.

Twenty-one year old Corey Cogdell, an Eagle River, Alaska native has only been shooting International Trap competitively for a little over two years. In 2007, Cogdell captured the bronze medal at the World Cup in Korea, which was her first international competition. Shortly after, Cogdell captured the bronze at the Pan American Games. She earned a spot on her first U.S. Olympic Team in March of 2008, after coming back from a sixth place finish and eight targets away from first place at the first Olympic Selection Match. Cogdell jumped up into first place on the first day of the Olympic Trials and never looked back, finishing on top with a 12 target lead and earning the one spot available in Women’s Trap to the 2008 U.S. Olympic team.

Glenn Eller (Katy, Texas) secured his third consecutive Olympic team berth in Men’s Double Trap, along with his USAMU teammate Jeff Holguin (Yorba Linda, Calif.), who earned his first spot on the U.S. Olympic Team. Both have been extremely successful recently on the international level. Eller claimed the gold medal at the 2007 Korea World Cup as well as the 2007 World Cup Final. He also took the silver medal at the 2008 “Good Luck Beijing” ISSF World Cup. Holguin claimed the silver in Men’s Double Trap at the 2007 Pan American Games and won the bronze medal at the World Cup USA this past May. Both are looking to be medal contenders in Beijing.

Already at the young age of 19, USAMU member Vincent Hancock (Eatonton, Ga.) is a World Champion, Pan American Games Champion and the 2007 World Cup Italy Champion and world record holder in the Men’s Skeet event. Hancock will be representing the U.S. on his first Olympic team in Beijing this August. Joining him in the Men’s Skeet event will be 22-year-old Sean McLelland (Mission, Texas), who finished in second place behind Hancock at the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials for Shotgun and will be competing in his first ever Olympic Games in Beijing.

Kim Rhode (El Monte, Calif.), a three-time Olympic medalist (1996 and 2004 gold medalist, 2000 bronze medalist) in Women’s Double Trap will be in Beijing to compete on her fourth consecutive U.S. Olympic Team. Rhode made the full-time switch to skeet after the Women’s Double Trap event was eliminated from Olympic competition following the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. Rhode was the World Cup Santo Domingo Champion and set a world record in Women’s Skeet in 2007. She was also the 2007 Pan American Games silver medalist. This past May, Rhode earned the silver medal at the World Cup USA in Kerrville, Texas.

In pistol, the eldest U.S. Olympic Team member from 2004, Libby Callahan (Columbia, S.C.), now 56, will again become the oldest known American woman to compete for the U.S. at an Olympic Games (winter or summer) in Beijing. Prior to Callahan, Emma Cook, at age 56 was the oldest known U.S. competitor in archery (1904). Cook competed on the 12th and 13th day after she turned 56. Callahan is still making great strides internationally, having won a World Cup medal in Women’s Air Pistol in 2005 and reclaiming the National Championship in 2006 in Women’s Sport Pistol after three years of finishing as the runner-up in this event. She also won the national title in 2007. Three-time Olympian Beki Snyder (Colorado Springs, Colo.) earned two spots on her fourth U.S. Olympic Team. Snyder will represent the U.S. in both Women’s Sport Pistol and Women’s Air Pistol at the Beijing Olympic Games.

Veterans Daryl Szarenski (Saginaw, Mich.), a two-time Olympian and member of the USAMU, and 2004 Olympian Jason Turner (Rochester, N.Y.), a 2007 Pan American Games double gold medalist, still continue to be major players internationally. Turner secured two spots on the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team in Men’s 10m Air Pistol as well as Men’s 50m Free Pistol, finishing in first place at both Olympic Trials. Szarenski secured a spot on his third Olympic team in the Men’s Free Pistol event, finishing in second place at the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials for Smallbore. Szarenski recently claimed the bronze medal at the “Good Luck Beijing” 2008 ISSF World Cup, which was the first World Cup medal won by a U.S. shooter in Men’s Free Pistol since 2000. New-comer Keith Sanderson (San Antonio, Texas), a Staff Sgt. in the U.S. Army, won the bronze medal at the 2007 World Cup in Munich and secured an Olympic participation slot, has dominated the Men’s Rapid Fire since coming on the scene in late 2004 and will be representing the U.S. on his first Olympic team in Beijing.

The U.S. earned a total of seven 2008 Olympic quota slots for pistol (women’s air – 1, men’s air – 1, men’s free – 2, women’s sport – 2 and men’s rapid fire – 1). A slot equals a person, so because Beki Snyder and Jason Turner already qualified in Air Pistol, and are doubling in Sport Pistol and Free Pistol respectively, Brenda Shinn (Riverside, Calif.) and Brian Beaman (Selby, S.D.), who were the second place finishers at the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials for Airgun, qualified for spots on the U.S. Olympic Team in Air Pistol. There will be seven total U.S. shooters competing in pistol at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.

Shooting competition at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing will run through August 17. For a complete Olympic Shooting competition schedule, please visit www.usashooting.org.

Media interested in more information about the 2008 U.S. Olympic Shooting team, please contact Mary Beth Vorwerk, U.S. Press Officer for Shooting at 1-391-082-5141 or via email at marybeth.vorwerk@usashooting.org.